WOAY-TV (Oak Hill, WV): While many of us are grumbling at shoveling snow and clearing snow off the car every 4 hours, there is a group of folks prospering in this weather.
During an interview in October 2024, Raleigh County Cattle Farmer Rick Snuffer said, “You’re hoping for some moisture this winter that will perk you into the ground and really get the groundwater back up. Well, that’s that’s what we need (heavy snowpack in winter). I mean, no one wants a lot of snow if you’re out there farming, but you need it.”
“We need because it melts in slowly. It rejuvenates the groundwater and whether you know it or people know or not, there’s a lot of nitrogen in snow. We get a little bit of fertilization, in fact, from snow, not a lot, but there is some.”
Raleigh County cattle farmer Rick Stouffer, when we interviewed him following the peak of the drought in October, hit the nail on the head. We need that moisture from the snowpack. There are 1 to 4 inches of total water in the snowpack. Craigsville tops the list after this storm with three inches of water in the snowpack. Farther south, 1.3 inches of total water will be in the snowpack by Saturday in Beckley and even farther south and Princeton, about 1.1 to 1.2 inches.
Now, when the snow does start to melt, that water will gradually filter into the topsoil and help the water table.
The damage has already been done from last year’s drought. Snuffer, said, “It got so dry, the heat was so bad that the farmers got to re-seed in the spring to get their desirable species growing again.”
Last year at this time, we had less than one inch in the snowpack, up to two inches in the highest elevations of western Pocahontas County.
So, we are starting 2025 on a positive note when it comes to available moisture, not only with the precipitation we’ve had, but also in the snowpack that’s going to eventually help the water table come this spring.
