Anytime the summer is hotter or cooler, drier or wetter than usual, you will see news stories about farmers, with speculation about damaged crops or losses.
Minnesota’s loggers also depend on the weather, though they usually get the kind they need — cold. The colder it is, and the longer it is cold, the better it is for cutting and hauling wood.
This winter, the warmest on record for Minnesota, has been a huge challenge for them.
Most of Minnesota’s timber is in lowlands and wetland forests, rather than on hills and mountains. Depending on the year, two-thirds to nearly three-fourths of timber production in Minnesota happens from December to April, when the ground is frozen.
“It’s not just those species that grow in wetlands. It’s the fact we often have to cross wetlands to get to upland sites,” said Rick Horton, executive vice president of Minnesota Forest Industries, the trade group of mills and other wood producers. “You think of ice road truckers. We’re hauling an 88,000-pound load of wood across a frozen wetland ... Without that deep cold, it’s awful hard to access a number of sites.”
Typically, Minnesota loggers produce about 35,000 to 40,000 cords a week in winter. This year, it’s been around 25,000 to 30,000, said Jon Drimel, forest operations section manager at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
“Right now, we’d be hitting our peak of woods activity,” he said. “We haven’t seen as much wood moving.”
Instead, loggers expect an announcement any day from the Minnesota Department of Transportation that the higher trucking loads permitted on wintertime roads are done for this year, which will effectively end winter logging. After that, loads have to be lighter, meaning it takes more shipments to move a quantity of timber.