Leaves on snow

In a normal winter in the UK, the leaves come down before any significant snow falls – assuming any snow falls at all. This year there were still green leaves when the snow came in December. I’ve not seen snow sitting on autumnal leaves before, and I’ve not seen leaves coming down on snow like this, but there’s been a lot of it. The effect is pretty, the reasons less so.

This of course is climate chaos in action. It looks charming enough, but it represents problematic changes. 

In theory, deciduous trees shed their leaves to be more efficient in the dark part of the year and to avoid the stressors of having snow fall on large leaves. I don’t know what happens to trees when they have to deal with this – I see a lot of leaves falling now, but even after the snow has melted in the last day or so, there are still plenty of trees outside my window who still have leaves.

I don’t really know what any of this means, for the seasons or for the trees, but it seemed worth remarking on.