Just as I was teaching my first year students, spring atmospheric conditions can vary dramatically over the years and especially the moment of spring thaw varies a lot in continental Poland. Some years, only by April did temperatures rose above 0 degrees and flooding started, while other years, already in January the spring-thaw flood was well underway. This year was one of the latter, so we expected water levels to have receded by April to facilitate collecting some of the sediment-trapping mats we placed on the floodplain.
But I did not start this blog for no reason with my lesson to the first year students. By the end of March, a rain period initiated a second flood period and our grass mats and Phillips samplers were submerged again. We still went to the field, because particularly the transport of sediment in the river is very interesting during such a second rain-flood peak (compared to the first snowmelt-flood). For the grass mats on the floodplain, all we did was checking if they were not trampled by elk or turned upside-down by a tractor. This gave me ample time to take some pictures. In May, we will return to finish the job!