As the Snow Disappears, Has ‘Snow Mold’ Become a Kentucky Problem?

As I write this, I can see a tiny pile of snow under a shrub across the Kentucky Wesleyan College lawn. It's right across the street. There's also a little in the adjacent parking lot. Yes, and an onslaught of warmer-than-average days has taken aim at snow piles everywhere. Thank heavens.

Winter Storm Fern

I'm certainly thankful Winter Storm Fern is in the rearview mirror. Still, I have to say she brought with her some meteorological or weather-related terms I was unfamiliar with. Terms like "frost cracking" and "ice pillars" were new to my ears before a few weeks ago. (I'll take the latter over the former, in case you were wondering.)

Snow Mold

But now that the last of the snow is melting across the Commonwealth, here comes another term I'll add to my personal lexicon. Are you familiar with "snow mold"? If not, let the tutorial begin. This grabbed my attention, recently, when Louisville Public Media's Chris Burton published an interview with WAVE 3 Meteorologist Tawana Andrew about the phenomenon, for lack of a better word.

Says Andrew, "Snow mold develops underneath the snow cover and becomes a significant issue when there is substantial snowfall before the ground can fully freeze." She had examined data from just before the onset of the storm and found that the soil's temperature had been in the mid-to-upper 30s before Fern. Here's what you might be seeing if it has developed.

And, what do you know? It's Kentucky bluegrass that is most susceptible to the development of snow mold. As the snow melts, the spores can trigger allergies. Andrew went on to say that it can hang around longer than we'd like; it disappears when the temperature hits 68 degrees. We're going to need a very long stretch of warm weather for the ground to get there.

So if your allergies are acting up, and you don't think you can attribute it to the usual suspects, maybe it's an UNusual suspect known as snow mold.