01/28/05 Northwest weather for ag, Part one

There is a reason why Creighton University's Art Douglas is asked back to the annual Spokane Ag Expo as a featured speaker. Quick, what is one of the most important questions farmers ask on a regular basis? What is the weather going to be like? And as a research associate at Creighton's Atmospheric Science Department, Douglas is one of the nation's foremost ag meteorologists. His forecasts are backed by decades of weather information and data that correlate how weather years might shape up based on previous trends. However, Douglas will admit that so far in 2005, Northwest weather has been a bit of an anomaly, and that is because of El Nino. Or not. Douglas says in reality there is two El Nino type patterns going on in the Pacific Ocean right now, which is a rarity. The larger of the two is based in the Southern Pacific. And as for the weather pattern lying in the Central Pacific effecting Northwest weather? DOUGLAS: It's an El Nino, but it's not behaving like an El Nino. And in fact, some of the dryness we're having here in the Pacific Northwest or the floods down in California really are not associated with El Nino, but they are associated with another big phenomenon out in the Central Pacific&a really big warm water pool that we have. And I think that warm water pool is going to stay around. And if you have warm water way west of Washington, what does that normally do for you guys? Makes you wet. Right now, we're going through an El Nino but I think for the long run, I think we're headed towards a wetter condition maybe towards the end of the spring and definitely for next winter, so there's some hope. Now considering how much of the Inland Northwest has experience below normal precipitation, even in some cases, extreme dryness, in recent years, that is a forecast that growers, especially those in the dryland wheat and grain areas, will take. And Douglas's predictions come at a time when high pressure has melted what little lowland snow accumulated in our region over the last couple of weeks, making the short term forecast, well not quite as wet as growers had hoped. DOUGLAS: We got a little El Nino screwing up things right now, but once it's out of the picture, I think your precipitation is going to go back up to normal, so I wouldn't worry about the dryness you have right now. So what are the particulars for the long range forecast for growers this year, especially during the growing season? More on that in our next program.