Mediation

Funny sometimes how the media reports the weather. It has been pretty clear for several days that the Catskill’s belated Christmas gift would be the worst winter storm of the season. Rather than just give us the clear picture though, our local forecasts are saying three to five inches today, repeating three to five inches tonight. They seem to think it best to mediate the impact, separating the storm front into halves, rather than telling us straight out we are looking at six to ten inches (and maybe more…) of snow within less than twenty-four hours.

Is that presentation supposed to be good news for older residents like me? I mean, I will only have to shovel three inches or so, if I go out and do it in the middle of the storm. Yea, oh by the way, I will have to do it twice.

Some snowcap in the mountains will help the rivers, but I’d still prefer a warm, wet winter with plenty of rain. A growing snowcap after six weeks of on and off rainfall days would be ideal, for there would be good flow in all of our rivers when the coldest weather settled in. Good, steady flow cleans and protects the precious gravel and silt beds where the stream life grows. Low flows and extreme cold mean anchor ice, and the sparse hatches of the 2025 season more than demonstrated how devastating that can be.

Things could still work out. If that foot of snow up high melts slowly, the rivers will get a fairly constant dose of water. If the weather continues to bounce up and down though, all of it could come rushing down at the same time, just like our previous snowpack. Floods and freezes are the problem, steady replenishment of ground water, springs and surface flows is the solution.

There are a lot of people pointing fingers at who is responsible: scientists, conservationists, big business, politicians, you name it. I tend to think that a lot of our increasingly unfriendly weather patterns are part of a natural cycle, though it makes a great deal of sense to me that man’s pollution and destruction of our natural resources is making things worse. I hope we wake up and get past the blame stage and do something positive about the problem. Wild fish and wild water are my passion, and I truly wish to see them outlast my time here.