Lake Superior was astonishingly calm as we walked out to a rocky point in the last rays of the setting Sun. With no wind and temperatures well above normal for late November, my fiancé and I only needed light sweaters and jackets to stay warm. It was a truly lovely day to be outside.
 |
| Lake Superior on a calm November, day. Photo by Emily Stone. |
 |
| Lake Superior on a calm November, day. Photo by Emily Stone. |
“Grandfather Alden would have called this a ‘weather breeder,’” I told Kevin. He didn’t read The Boxcar Children books by Gertrude Chandler Warner, but they were a staple of my childhood. In this early reader series, four brave siblings solve quaint mysteries with the help of their wise grandpa. In Snowbound Mystery they spend a glorious, bluebird day hiking around a mountain cabin before a blizzard socks them in. Their Grandfather called the bluebird day a “weather breeder.”
On The Weather Channel’s website, I found this explanation to confirm Grandfather Alden’s usage: “According to a late 19th century definition, a weather breeder is a beautiful day of ‘unusual fineness’… However, such a day is usually followed by bad weather.” A 1996 article about weather adages in The New York Times explains that the only science behind that saying is the law of averages. Good weather doesn’t cause bad weather, but since the weather is always changing, your good weather will soon turn to bad. Checking my weather app, I was thrilled to see the amount of snow in the forecast going up yet again. This day was certainly the calm before the storm!
Cold rain splattered my windshield the next day as I headed back to the shores of a smaller lake in Northern Wisconsin. Before cozying up indoors, I wrapped my digital thermometer in plastic wrap and tucked it under the bright green frond of an evergreen wood fern in the yard. This has become an annual ritual. On the weather station screen indoors, I could see that the newly placed sensor matched the air temperature in the mid-30s.
 |
| Can you see the white corner of the temperature sensor hidden under the fern? Photo by Emily Stone. |
Overnight, the wind howled and rain turned to snow.
As winter’s first snowflakes drifted through the dark, some landed on top of dead plants, fallen leaves, twigs, and other detritus of the forest floor. In many places, snow never fully reached the ground. That was surely true for the protected hideaway of my thermometer. By dawn, it was buried under six inches and counting.
Despite falling temperatures, the relative warmth of the cold rain and the residual heat of summer were still radiating from the soil. At sunrise, when I checked the weather station, the air temp had dropped to 24 degrees Fahrenheit, but the sensor cozied up to the earth under a fresh blanket of snow read 33 degrees. After two winters of thin snow, the Subnivean Zone has returned!
 |
| All winter long I will monitor the air temperature and the temperature of a thermometer I recently buried in the Subnivean Zone under the snow. In it’s first day of existence this winter, the Subnivean Zone did not drop below 33 degrees! Photo by Emily Stone. |
In this magical space, with a blanket of snow to trap the earth’s warmth and provide a solid break against the windchill, temperatures hover around freezing even as the world above drops below zero. Deeper snow provides even more insulation, and all manner of Beings—from mice to martens, bacteria, fungi, spiders, hibernating insects, frozen wood frogs, and more—rely on the moderated microclimate.
In 2022-23—the winter of record-breaking snow—deep drifts accumulated on still-thawed ground, and the temperature in my front yard’s subnivium didn’t drop below 32 degrees for the entire season. The last two winters haven’t been so lucky. With thin, icy snowpacks, plant roots and mosses felt the sting of dry, bitter cold, ruffed grouse couldn’t dive into a snow cave to spend the night, and small mammals had to face the choice of staying safe and warm in a burrow, or risking being eaten or dangerously chilled while they foraged for food. Wood frogs in the leaf litter suffered without snow to buffer them from energetically costly freeze-thaw cycles.
Happily, at least for this week, those Beings are safe from the challenges of a snowless winter. Those Beings include me. Cold weather without groomed ski trails makes me sad. This week, my social media feed is full of good news about trails opening.
A weather breeder might be a day of “unusual fineness”, but I personally wouldn’t call what came after it “bad weather.” For many Northwoods Beings (the ones who don’t have to drive on bad roads or clear downed trees) snow and The Subnivean Zone are truly something to be thankful for!
 |
Fluffy snow is a wonderful insulator to help retain warmth from the earth. Fluffy snow is also great for skiing up a gravel road! Photo by Emily Stone. |
Emily’s brand-new third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.
For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Winter Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.
