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Siberia on the Chesapeake: Winter Storms Foretell Changes in Chesapeake Waterfowl Populations
A preternatural quiet has fallen over the land. Our breathing is the only sound. On this cold snap of a February day, even exhaled air is quickly stilled, flash-frozen into ice crystals. Wind-whipped snows rest in six-foot-high banks that stretch for miles. We might be in Siberia.
Suddenly, not in Russia but in Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay, a hushed world springs to life. Hundreds of lesser snow geese, their wings white-on-white against the deep snows, take flight from a nearby field, startled, perhaps, by our presence. Lesser snow geese breed in summer in Siberia and other High Arctic locales. The geese leave the Far North before the first blizzard, to drift down and settle for the winter along the normally snow-free mid- and South Atlantic coast.
Early Spring Disrupts Life on Northern Rivers
The winter-old river ice creaks and groans, shifting position. Spring has come early to the frozen upper Hudson River, and ice-out is just around the corner.
Lilliputian wildflowers will soon line the Hudson's banks. In what are known as riverside ice meadows, an ancient cycle of ice formation and melting gives rise to swamp candles, ladies'-tresses, wood lilies, and other rare, diminutive flowers.
Winter Roads Need a Diet: Low Sodium
Look at any car in the northern tier of the United States in winter, and you'll see why roads need to go on a diet—a low-sodium diet.
From November through March, autos, trains, and buses in cold climes are covered in a spray of white: road salt (sodium chloride). But scientists are finding that de-icing roads during winter storms inflicts widespread damage as road salt chemicals wash downstream.