Snow

These two storms are lining up more and more like the two big storms the last week of March in 1987 in northwest Kansas. That one was a 36 inch event that came in in two parts a week apart. It was wet heavy snow with huge winds. I saw 18 foot drifts and found dead mule deer as well as dead pheasants, etc. My 9 foot shop doors were completely covered. That's where my tractor was. The weight of the snow shoved a lot of my wood fence posts in the ground until they were only 2 feet tall above ground. We lost most of our bird population, 90+% of our calf crop, and still had snow on the north side of hills in June. The National Guard was flying hay to cattle for some time. Luckily this time we're not 2 weeks from having a baby!!!
 
Prairie Drifter said:
These two storms are lining up more and more like the two big storms the last week of March in 1987 in northwest Kansas. That one was a 36 inch event that came in in two parts a week apart. It was wet heavy snow with huge winds. I saw 18 foot drifts and found dead mule deer as well as dead pheasants, etc. My 9 foot shop doors were completely covered. That's where my tractor was. The weight of the snow shoved a lot of my wood fence posts in the ground until they were only 2 feet tall above ground. We lost most of our bird population, 90+% of our calf crop, and still had snow on the north side of hills in June. The National Guard was flying hay to cattle for some time. Luckily this time we're not 2 weeks from having a baby!!!
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I bet that was scary!!!! That would put me in panic mode for sure not knowing when that baby was coming and knowing you are home bound for a while.
 
These weather conditions really aren't that extreme. If pheasants couldn't make it through the kind of weather Kansas is experiencing now, they would never survive a winter in the Dakota's. Highs have been in the 30's. In the Dakota's they endure snowpack all winter, with lows below zero and highs in the single digits. The birds were also loaded with fat at the end of season.
 
Looks like the core of the storm went south. They've backed off this morning to somewhere in the 7-10 to 7-12 range depending on the station. The Governor called off work for my county so I guess I can watch it on radar.
 
fsentkilr said:
These weather conditions really aren't that extreme. If pheasants couldn't make it through the kind of weather Kansas is experiencing now, they would never survive a winter in the Dakota's. Highs have been in the 30's. In the Dakota's they endure snowpack all winter, with lows below zero and highs in the single digits. The birds were also loaded with fat at the end of season.
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I was talking to a cousin of mine who farms in SW North Dakota about this last week. It gets cold up there, but they really don't get as much snow as you might think. Snow will stay in the ditches all winter, but they usually don't have an all winter snowpack. He was saying that it took the birds 8-10 years to come back from one really bad winter in the late 70's. The difference was that they didn't have CRP back then. This is a long way of saying that these back to back storms might be trouble for the birds in KS because there's no CRP for them this year. I hope you're right though.
 
in MN we have had snow on the ground since early december in our best pheasant habitat on the SD border if there is cover & food to get at the bulk of the birds will be OK eastern ND & NE SD will have snow through out the winter on a average year the central & western parts of SD & ND do have less snow on average but blowing wind all the damn winter it is tuff on the birds but if they didnt have habitat then they would be in trouble...

birds in MN are running around the cattails close to crops & in & out of the wind breaks havent herd of any mass die offs yet???
 
small munsterlander owner said:
in MN we have had snow on the ground since early december in our best pheasant habitat on the SD border if there is cover & food to get at the bulk of the birds will be OK eastern ND & NE SD will have snow through out the winter on a average year the central & western parts of SD & ND do have less snow on average but blowing wind all the damn winter it is tuff on the birds but if they didnt have habitat then they would be in trouble...

birds in MN are running around the cattails close to crops & in & out of the wind breaks havent herd of any mass die offs yet???
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I agree 100% that birds can do fine with deep snow if they have good cover. With haying/grazing of CRP, KS doesn't have near the cover this year like you're describing in MN.
 
About 6 in Wichita. Slushy, wet, and heavy. 4th day in a row of no school. COuld have gone both today and yesterday. The moms around here are getting pretty frustrated.
 
I drove around this morning to count quail in the road ditches. We had another 6 inches of snow or so out of this last event. I saw 7 coveys of quail, 2 rabbits and a coyote.(he couldn't out run the .243 bullet). The coveys of quail probably averaged 10 birds or so each. They all seemed to be in good shape. I think we have more quail in this area this time of year than we have in 10 years or so. Hopefully we won't get a bunch of heavy rains during nesting this year.
 
Good News

fsentkilr said:
I drove around this morning to count quail in the road ditches. We had another 6 inches of snow or so out of this last event. I saw 7 coveys of quail, 2 rabbits and a coyote.(he couldn't out run the .243 bullet). The coveys of quail probably averaged 10 birds or so each. They all seemed to be in good shape. I think we have more quail in this area this time of year than we have in 10 years or so. Hopefully we won't get a bunch of heavy rains during nesting this year.
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That is good news...
 
Snow TOTALS

Can we get some SNOW Totals from your area? I'm glad everybody got some much needed moisture.
 
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