News From the Wilds March Prescott weather Average high temperature: 59.3 F, +/-4.6 Average low temperature: 28.5 F, +/-3.4 Record high temperature: 83 F, March 18, 2007 Record low temperature: 2 F, March 1, 1913 Average precipitation: 1.68”, +/-1.56 Record high March precipitation: 7.11”, 1918 Record high March snowfall: 34.2”, 1973 Record low March precipitation: 0”, 5.5 percent of all years Max daily March precipitation: 3.21”, March 3, 1938
Black Hawks, the rarest species of hawk in North America, migrate back to the Central Highlands this month. Photo by Ty Fitzmorris. By Ty Fitzmorris
March
is a deceptive month in the Central Highlands. Temperatures routinely reach 70 degrees, and the sunny, lengthening days suggest that spring is finally here. But March is also one of the wettest months, and most of that moisture comes in the form of snow. Large storm systems over the Pacific Ocean throw off snowstorms that sweep into the area from the north, dropping anywhere from inches to feet of snow and bringing us firmly back into winter. Even in years such as this one, which could turn out to be among the driest on record, March often can bring enough snow and rain to bolster overall winter averages back to normal. Sometimes, however, after a dry January and February, March precipitation stays below average. The combined effects of this kind of winter drought can be profound. The last time the Central Highlands experienced this combination was in 2002, and the lack of snow-
pack caused drought-stricken trees to succumb to bark-beetle infestations, which killed 50-80 percent of the Ponderosas in some areas. The extreme fire danger caused the national forests to close, which has only happened a handful of times. These driest years, however, are the exception. More often than not, March brings large, wet storms, even after dry months prior. Because of this, however, March is one of the more dangerous times for creatures in the wilds. Many mammals are bearing young now, some insects are emerging from creeks and pupae as winged adults, and birds are making nests or migrating back into the area from the tropics. Dramatic cold snaps can cause many of these species severe temperature and food stress and sometimes lead to their deaths.
Most
of the native plants of the highlands don’t trust the warm times enough to begin growing or flowering just yet. They’ll wait until the days are reliably warm and frost free, though
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exactly how they determine this is largely a mystery. Non-native plants, such as fruit trees and ornamentals have no such mechanism and flower as soon as the temperatures and precipitation allow. In the lower deserts, such as the western slopes of the Sierra Prieta mountains, the frosts have passed by now, and plants are emerging to greet their early hummingbird, butterfly, moth, fly, and native bee pollinators. The exuberance of spring is in riotous full swing in the deserts, and over the next several months it will climb up the riparian corridors and south-facing slopes into the Highlands.
In
our high desert landscape, water scarcity is the single greatest factor that determines what happens in the natural world. But water scarcity can take different forms — too little falling as precipitation or too little available to plants and animals at the right time of year. Water is most useful to plants when it’s liquid, and when air temperatures are high enough for plants to
perform photosynthesis. Plants (and animals for that matter) can’t utilize much of the precipitation that falls in the Central Highlands throughout the year because it falls in torrents — such as during the monsoon season of late summer — and washes through the landscape in erosive floods. Other times it falls in the form of snow, when air temperatures are too low for plants to perform photosynthesis. Snow, however, proves to be the more valuable source of water for our region. That’s because it melts slowly from north-facing slopes, saturating soils and filling rivers slowly but continuously. Long after the lowlands are warm enough for plant growth and flowering, patches of snow remain in the shadows of the mountains providing this precious, scarce resource. ***** Ty Fitzmorris is an itinerant and often distractible naturalist who lives in Prescott and runs Peregrine Book Company and Raven Café as a sideline to his natural history pursuits. Contact him at Ty@PeregrineBookCompany.Com with questions or comments.