We got plowed out from the last snowstorm just last night. It’s snowing again this morning and between the two snowstorms, we will get well over a foot of new snow. That’s typical Minnesota winter weather, but wait! They are calling for a stretch of cold weather. They predict lows at night from -25 to -30°F [-32 to -34°C] until the beginning of next week. That may seem extreme. However, cold snaps following snows like we are having more often were marked by temperatures with highs for the day close to the lows we are predicted to get. Fahrenheit and Celsius’s scales are the same at -40°. In the winter, we used to get temperatures as cold as -50°F [-46°C]. The record low in Minnesota is -60°F [-51°C].
Winter weather has had the biggest change since the effects of global warming have taken hold. Our extreme lows are now 25°F warmer than when I first moved back to Minnesota in 1979. Without those extremely cold temperatures, pests have been able to gain a foothold in our forests killings some families of our trees. The next weeks predict temperatures will be low enough to get rid of several of them. It shows there are both good and bad facts coming with global warming.
