For the first time this winter, the snow level reached the climatic norm.

Here comes the last month of winter! And she just started to please us and the inhabitants of our protected forests with fresh abundant snow, light frost, trails of animal tracks.
The level of snow cover — one of the most important weather and climate indicators. Our reserve, like all others, maintains the Chronicle of nature, where all the most important indicators of ecosystem life are recorded. In addition to phenological observations, there is ongoing monitoring of environmental pollution.

Since 1983, one of the stations of complex background monitoring operates in our reserve. The station includes a polygon for observation of atmospheric air pollution, an analytical laboratory, a network of permanent trial plots and sampling points for surface water, soil and vegetation. Our scientists three times a day – at 9-00, 15-00 and at 21-00 take the readings of the instruments, including measuring the level of precipitation.

Winter weather this year falls far behind the calendar. Only in the first decade of January fell just 1 cm of raw snow. In the second decade the snow cover grew to 7 cm. And so, in the last week of January, the winter weather finally settled. On January 29, 7cm of snow fell again, and on the 30th – another 7.6 cm. Now the depth of the snow cover in our trial plots was 30 cm. And the snowfall does not seem to end! The amount of snow for the first time during the winter came, finally, at a normal level for this time of year.

And our scientists continue monitoring work.
Annually, the reserve carries out more than 18 thousand measurements of various components of the natural environment, including meteorological geochemical, geophysical and biological characteristics of ecosystems. The monitoring results allow to reliably estimate the bioclimatic changes occurring in the ecosystems of the reserve under the influence of global factors.

Photo: Ольга Калинина.