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Wet ’06 predicted
Scott
A. Yates,
Capital Press Staff Writer 2/13/06
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Forecast is good news for Northwest, but drought continues in Southwest
SPOKANE – “That’s where you’re supposed to applaud,” said Art Douglas,
long-range weather forecaster, as he predicted wetter-than-normal spring
weather in the Pacific Northwest this year.
Speaking at the Pacific Northwest Farm Forum, the chairman of the
Atmospheric Sciences Department at Creighton University in Nebraska said the
season would fall in the upper 40 percent of wet years for the region.
That’s good news for dryland wheat growers who depend on rainfall to boost
yields.
But what Mother Nature giveth in one location, she taketh away in another.
At least, that’s Douglas’ prediction. Based on his analysis, the drought
already being experienced in the Southwest U.S. will only intensify, with
limited rainfall and temperatures easily 2 degrees above normal.
He said drought could extend into the corn belt of the country as well, but
questioned whether it would affect production. He noted that many areas of
Illinois had only 50 percent of precipitation and still produced bumper
crops.
“That’s what hybrids have done for us,” he said.
Although Douglas’ record for accuracy isn’t perfect, he did predict a dry
January to March in the Pacific Northwest last year, followed by slightly
above-average precipitation April through June, which is what happened – and
saved the wheat crop from total disaster in the process.
Patting himself on the back at this year’s presentation, he quipped: “I was
pretty lucky last year. Maybe the government should hire me.”
Douglas said a La Niña pattern is currently controlling Northwest weather.
It is the opposite of the better- known El Niño, which is marked by a warm
body of water off the coast of South America.
In addition to being wetter, the spring will also be cooler. Summertime
weather is expected to be similar to last year’s, Douglas said.
For farmers who keep their own records, the forecaster said a year with the
closest connection to the weather variables now exhibited was 1996. Other
analog years include 1953, 1961, 1967, 2001 and 2002.
An expert in analyzing Pacific Ocean temperatures, Douglas tends to shy away
from pronouncements based on the Atlantic Ocean. Last year’s surge in the
number of hurricanes, however, caused him to review conditions there more
closely. And it should get Northwest farmers’ attention too, since energy
prices are strongly connected with what’s happening in the Atlantic.
As he explained, the Atlantic Ocean goes through 20- to 30-year cycles of
warming and cooling called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. The
Atlantic is in a warm cycle now with record high temperatures from Africa to
the Caribbean, hence the 27 hurricanes that occurred last season. The
previous record was 23. Experts are predicting another big year for
hurricanes in 2006.
In the Pacific Ocean, meanwhile, there is a Pacific Decadal Oscillation that
lasts for 10 years or so, Douglas said. Right now, Pacific sea-surface
temperatures are also some of the warmest on record caused by a jet stream
that is far north of normal, causing less cloudiness and allowing more
sunlight to heat up water.
And when the Pacific is warmer, the Atlantic gets saltier. As that salty
water moves north toward Greenland, a process that take 20 to 30 years, a
long-range forecaster from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in
Hamburg, Germany, suggests the bottom will fall out of the global warming.
“If forecasts by (Mojib) Latif are correct, we’ll have another 10 to 15
years of warm winters then we’re going to turn back toward a colder regime”
with some of the coldest weather in 100 years developing in the Eastern U.S.
and Europe around 2050, Douglas said.
Scott Yates is based in Spokane. His e-mail address is syates@capitalpress.com.
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