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18 November 2014
While we brace for 150F this morning and moan that it’s 300F below normal in Pittsburgh, it’s important to look at the bright side.
Last winter’s “polar vortex” put a real dent in invasive insect populations. It reduced the hemlock woolly adelgid population in the eastern U.S. and completely wiped out adelgids in some of the infected stands in Cook Forest. It also killed emerald ash borers and stink bugs.
This one-to-two day cold snap won’t seriously reduce invasive insects but it may zap a few bugs caught unexpectedly outside their lairs. Every little bit helps.
And one more thought in case you aren’t convinced. There are no poisonous snakes in Alaska and very few in Canada and northern-border U.S. states.
Winter is a great pest control system.
p.s. It also reduces human pests. No teenagers are “partying” tonight in the park across the street.
(photo from Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons license. Click on the image to see the original)
Kate, you are so wise!!!
And last Summer we were miserable in a 100° plus heat wave, which knocked the West Nile Virus mosquitoes way back and saved us from the spraying. Bugs are like us, they want it just right.
Having no bugs is a great upside to having cold winters. Here in northeast Saskatchewan, sometimes the amount of time spent outdoors is inverse to the the number of mosquitoes outside. Also, in winter, we can control our body temperature by the layers of clothing we wear. In the summer, you can only take off so many clothes …
A brilliant day with nothing but blue skies, heavy frost on the trees, and a layer of freshly fallen snow on the ground is hard to beat.
All that being said, by the end of February most of us are ready for an end to the chill of that stark winter beauty.
Enjoy your winter. I’ve got my snowshoes ready and we have the cold weather. Now bring on the snow.