Notes from Gothic after winter: low snow year, marmots, billy barr, and pollinator phenological mismatch

 Notes from Gothic as winter comes to an end:

It was an extremely low snow year this winter in Gothic (3rd lowest winter since records began). With only a few weeks left when we might typically get snow, we're sitting at 225 inches (Historic average is 405.6", max snowfall was 646" winter of 94-95 and min snowfall was 186.6" was 76-77, also known as the "Winter of None"). I was looking back at photos I took May 1st from the Gothic bridge over the East River, and the difference is dramatic.

This caused me to look over billy barr's data set. For those not familiar with billy, he permanently moved to Gothic in 1974 and has been measuring snowfall and SWE (snow water content/equivalent) twice daily (a.m. and p.m.) since that first winter of 1974. He started doing it because he was curious (and bored, being one of only 3 people out here). He has used simple methods that line up with the now more sophisticated SNOTEL (automated snow telemetry) sites. His data is publicly available at https://www.gothicwx.org/

When graphed out, there's an obvious trend in Gothic towards less snow and for an earlier melt of the winter's snowpack. In the past 14 years, there has only been one year above the long-term average!

The 2nd graph is when the winter's snowpack melts to bare ground for the first time, not the last time snow is on the ground as mid June accumulating snows aren't uncommon. The red line is the trend line, the green dashed line is the average since billy began measuring snow. This year 0 cm was marked at May 4th. The latest the snowpack has subsisted was 19 June (winter 94-95) and the earliest it has melted out was 23 April (winter 11-12). On June 1st, there is on average 3.5" of snow still on the ground.

One of the things we noticed with the early snowmelt and warmer spring was that the flowers bloomed many weeks ahead of normal. Claytonia (common name: spring beauty, pictured) bloomed and faded before any pollinators had started flying (phenological mismatch). I talked to a pollination biologist this week, and he is unsure how this will affect their reproduction this year, but he will know by the end of the summer when he measures Claytonia seed set in his plots.

The marmots came out of hibernation in early April this year (graph courtesy of a trailside sign provided by Dan Blumstein of UCLA who has been part of a marmot study at RMBL dating back to 1962: https://sites.lifesci.ucla.edu/eeb-rmbl-marmots/ It's one of the longest continuous studies of a mammal in the world) Their research has shown that the earlier marmots emerge from hibernation the more negatively affected they are.

This is just the smallest of snippets from my personal observations and the research going on here at RMBL. RMBL has been operating as an outdoor lab since 1928, so they have been documenting change and species ability/inability to adapt for almost 100 years.

Take this info how you will. Here's to a deeper winter next year!