By Stephen Smoot
Humans have mixed emotions about heavy snowfalls that get to lay on the ground for a long time. Children get excited to spend some down time at home, away from schoolwork. Adults have to miss their responsibilities away from home – at least until the roads get cleared. Whether they see that as a blessing or a curse is up to them.
If they could register their opinion, however, plants and the soil they need to survive and thrive would be unified in their desire to see more snow.
According to the Old Farmers Almanac, “snow is a poor man’s fertilizer” and “a good winter with snow makes all the plants grow.” The 2024-25 winter, so far has brought to some areas the kinds of snowfalls that can boost plant health and groundwater rejuvenation.
As the farm journal AgWeb explains, when “precipitation falls through the atmosphere, it collects atmospheric nitrogen which is in the NH2 form. When snow collects on thawed soil, it slowly melts, allowing a slow-release of NH2 into the soil profile.”
There, it converts to NH3 “and nitrate fixing takes place without the microbial paralyzing effects” This conversion is necessary because it transforms nitrogen into a form that is “bioavailable” in the soil for growth. Commercially produced fertilizers do something similar, but snow can accomplish the same goal naturally.
“Since the ground is already thawed,” states AgWeb, “most of the moisture and nitrogen seep into the soil profile, adding to the total nitrogen content.”
While heavy rains and lightning also provide natural nitrogen, lightning strikes are in too limited an area while rains run off before they can significantly add nutrients.
This also explains why grass that has been covered by at least a few inches of snow for a time seems greener and more lush, despite laying under the pack out of the reach of sunlight.
The Old Farmers Almanac also states that snow provides insulation for plants. “Snow is mostly air surrounded by a little frozen water,” it explains, going on to say that “it is an excellent insulator of the soil and plant roots. A blanket of snow’s insulating properties also ensure that certain plants “are protected from the freeze-thaw cycle.”
With the Mountain State experiencing significant drought in the past year, areas experiencing repeated heavy snows should develop more resilience should such conditions return. In 2022, the American Geophysical Union’s journal published an article focusing on the effect of “seasonal snows” on groundwater.
It explained that “in areas with seasonal snowfall, the spring snowmelt often accounts for a large percentage of annual groundwater recharge.” In other words, a slowly melting pack of snow allows water to percolate through the soil into groundwater reservoirs that feed wells and natural springs. An insulating blanket of snow also often prevents the ground from freezing over, which acts as a barrier to water absorption.
Rainfall also feeds groundwater, but often runs off into streams, lakes, and ponds more than slowly melting snow.
While heavy snows and slow melts cause headaches for humans, they provide part of the food and fuel needed to build soil nutrients as well as groundwater resources.
