Mid November snow

By Aaron Horrell

It is not unusual for deciduous trees in Southeast Missouri to hold onto their leaves into the first part of November. Most years October is the month for our leaves to turn from green to yellow, red and brown. By mid November the limbs are mostly bare most years, but this year was a bit out of the norm.

The first winter storm of this winter season fell the evening and night of Nov. 13. The next morning I went out intending to capture a few good images of snow on deciduous trees still dressed in green.

The image here shows what happened on a mostly windless night when a 2-inch snow fell quietly in the forest. The green in my image is from leaves of a young American beech tree. The trunks of two large tulip trees are shown also.

Wet snow can be a disaster for trees when the snowfall reaches five inches or more, much the same as a severe ice storm. The leaves will continue to collect snow until the limbs bend and break. Sometimes large trees succumb to the weight of heavy wet snow and crash down. Usually though, we are rewarded with a beautiful sight of white on green when late autumn and early snow come together as it did this time.