Snow! Melt. Snow! Melt. Snow! Melt. Snow!

This has been the pattern for about the last 2 months.  We received our first good snow on October 4th this fall.  That of course melted, which I expected it to.  We then received another good snow on November 3rd, about 4 or 5 inches.  I halfway expected that one to stick around for the winter, but of course it melted about a week later also.  Finally, we received another 2" on Thanksgiving, and I was sure that it would stick with us for the rest of the winter.  But low and behold, the first week of December brought RAIN of all things to North Dakota, and that of course melted the snow.

Now another 2" of snow over the weekend, and of course behind it comes the 30mph north winds and the bitter cold.  Certainly a little snow is better than none at all, such a small amount accompanied by such strong wind still blows a lot of areas bare out on the course.  The snowfence is helping keep some of the snow on the greens, but there are still a lot of areas on the course that are uncovered right now.  Temperatures that barely grazed 0 yesterday, and then dipped to -9 last night are surely are starting to take a toll on some of the Poa in the exposed areas out there.

We really need to get that one good burying snow here soon....

That "feels like" temp of -23 is a brutal combination of cold
and wind on the exposed turf on the golf course.

Just a little over an inch of snow on 16 green provided a decent amount
of protection keeping the turf canopy closer to 11 degrees.