With devastating tornadoes already ravaging the South, state climatologists are up in the air about spring weather predictions. Long-term projections show extreme drought from South Carolina stretching to New Mexico.  

Climatologists anxiously track weather patterns

Mother Nature might be a bit kinder this spring than last, as experts have guarded optimism for relief from the effects of the weather phenomenon known as La Niña.

"We’ve seen some decent rains in some of our worst-hit areas this year that we didn’t get last year," says Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska. "Also, when you see a second La Niña signal following a strong previous one, the second typically is not as significant, and this seems to be the case."

Concerns remain. Some weather experts still have concerns for this spring, though. Rains have helped the winter wheat crop in Oklahoma, but the Panhandle and extreme southwest Oklahoma are still in the most severe drought classification, says Renee McPherson, Oklahoma state climatologist. The western third of the state remains in extreme drought, the second highest classification. Rainfall has helped, but "the western two-thirds of the state remain at risk for a severe drought this spring," McPherson says.

It’s not only hard-hit states such as Oklahoma and Texas that are at risk for severe drought this spring. Very dry pockets also exist in northwest Iowa, southern Minnesota, northeast Nebraska and eastern South Dakota and are very much at risk, says Al Dutcher, Nebraska state climatologist. Some of these areas have looked at a departure from 5" to 6" to as much as 9" of rainfall from the period beginning Oct. 1, 2011, to early January.

Dutcher’s biggest fear for spring is what’s called a split-flow pattern, in which fronts and rainfall would miss the Plains and the western Corn Belt, like it did last year, but dump high

levels of rain in the Ohio Valley.

"It could be as bad as last year this spring," he says. "I look for below-normal rainfall and above-normal temperatures for the southern U.S. this spring due to La Niña," says John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas state climatologist. Because of that, he suggests farmers consider more drought-tolerant crops, such as sorghum and cotton, rather than corn. "There is no deep soil moisture yet," he says. Over much of the state, rainfall remains 75% of normal compared to just 45% of normal in 2011, which set a 12-month record for lack of rainfall. Meanwhile, Nielsen-Gammon notes, West Texas and the southern part of the state missed fall and winter rains and remain in extreme drought.

Atypical Niña. In North Dakota, La Niña years are supposed to mean cold, wet winters and wetter than normal springs. December 2011, however, was the 13th driest since records began being kept in 1890.

"It’s a very unusual year," says Adnan Akyuz, North Dakota state climatologist at North Dakota State University. "The Sept. 1 to Jan. 8 period was the warmest in Fargo’s history and the fifth most snowless."

Because this is such an atypical La Niña, Akyuz thinks the odds favor a drier than normal spring, despite contrary predictions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center.

Parts of South Dakota remain dry, which Dennis Todey, South Dakota state climatologist, fears might continue. As a result, farmers might want to consider dropping plant populations this spring, he says.

In Minnesota, soils are so dry that even the likelihood of above-normal spring rainfall will be insufficient to fully recharge the soils, says Mark Seeley, University of Minnesota Extension climatologist.

"Soils have no moisture for the first 3' or deeper," he says, adding that there is potential for early spring field work but fewer days to get it done.

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