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Today’s high in the Boston area was 54 degrees. We received about 8 inches of snow this past weekend. It was our first plowable snow of the winter. We were excited to get at least some snow for the winter. We didn’t get any snow over Christmas, but a white Christmas is actually pretty rare here, as January and February tend to be the coldest and snowiest months of our winter season. When the snow finally came this season, it was heavy and wet. We broke out our snowblower; it was the first time we had used it since two years ago. We had so little snow last year that we didn’t need to use it at all.
But it turns out that we didn’t actually need that snowblower for this snow event after all. It’s just two days later, and almost all of that snow has melted. As we moved into Tuesday, temps started to soar into the mid-fifties; the snowbanks disappeared under a torrential deluge of rain in the blink of an eye.
We are lucky. We live on a hill, so we didn’t have to worry about flooding with all that rain and snowmelt. But other towns weren’t as fortunate, and that 3+ inches of rain resulted in flooded and washed-out roads across coastal communities.
This warmer weather is not entirely surprising because we are in an El Nino pattern of weather. But the winter landscape in the Northeast has dramatically changed since I moved out here more than 20 years ago from California. When I first came here, I was so excited to live in a snowy wonderland during the winter months. Snow was a rarity for me as I had always lived in desert and tropical climates. Those first few years, I needed to learn how to work a snowblower. I learned how to walk like a penguin to survive walking on icy sidewalks. I learned to keep an ice scraper and a shovel in my car in case a snowstorm hit while I was at work.
But those are skills that are rapidly becoming obsolete in my warming area of the country. Today’s Boston Globe reports on a newly released study from Dartmouth that highlights a sharp drop in the Northeast snowpack due to climate change. The article quotes a scientist from the study, Justin Mankin, associate professor of geography at Dartmouth, as he discusses “the shift from snow-dominated winters to rain-dominated winters” in the Northeast.
I have definitely already noticed how much wetter our winters have become. Our summer and fall months have also been drenched in rain as well. I used to welcome the crisp, cool air of autumn. But now, I’m much more likely to find myself searching for a raincoat and umbrella instead of a heavier fall coat. This summer, we were barely able to sit outside in our backyard because of all of the rain. A Washington Post article quoted a particularly rainy stat from Boston meteorologist Cindy Fitzgibbon: as of October, out of 20 weekends since June in 2023, only five had been dry.
Because of that soggy summer, we are seeing mold growth where we haven’t before. We’re having to invest in mold mitigation and dehumidifiers. Relatives have had to deal with basement flooding. And that is just on a personal level. Industries like the ski industry rely on cold and snowy winters, and they are feeling the brunt of our warming weather.
I miss snowy winters. I miss the cold and peaceful feeling that drifts down over the entire world after a heavy snow. I despair that we have already moved beyond a point of no return. But I’m also an optimist. We will have to change our seasonal habits and live our winter lives differently. We are also doing what we can to electrify our house as we prepare to go fully solar. We do what we can to make small changes both to adapt to and help prevent climate change.
We’re only one of more than eight billion people in this world. And gigantic corporations are the biggest polluters out there. The only thing that can actually help us fight climate change is large-scale policy changes. If our governments can’t do that, then they will have to spend billions helping us adapt to climate change.
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