11/18/08 A fall to spring weather forecast wth some good, bad and possibly ugly

Farm and Ranch November 18, 2008 So why was it so dry in the Pacific Northwest this fall? We had a small El Nino forecasters didn't foresee. That's what Creighton University Climatologist Dr. Art Douglas told the Washington Association of Wheat Growers Convention on Friday. Now that the rain has returned; Douglas: "Precip should be normal to above normal, November, December, January. Near the end of January though, and going into February, we ought to see those rainfall amounts dropping off." And then Douglas expects a super dry spring in the Pacific Northwest. What's it all mean for the regions winter wheat? Douglas: "If we don't have a lot of cold weather in the winter the wheat is going to be better developed than in other years. Those are all pluses and then it is a matter of how dry. And then how warm it is going to get. So far it looks like the spring temperature pattern going to be one in which the heat is going to be concentrated more in the southern tier of states. And up here in the Northwest at least normal temperatures. And that again would help out. If the temperatures are near normal there is not as much stress." Spring crops could be a real concern. Douglas' dry spring forecast could be followed by a real El Nino, which he says is overdue and would make for a dry fall of 2009. Douglas: "Now if it doesn't occur in 2009 those odds really go up that in 2010 it will come." I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.