It Was A HOT Year
It Was A HOT Year. I'm Greg Martin with Washington Ag Today.
That confirms it.
LOYD: 2015 really was an outlier for Washington State in terms of about a degree almost above the warmest previous year.
That's Nic Loyd, AgWeatherNet Meteorologist talking about how much warmer 2015 was than other years.
LOYD: People think well a degree fahrenheit, that's not very much but when you expand it out over an entire state over and entire year it's a big deal. It's a big difference in the effects of weather and the amount of actual heat in the atmosphere so it's really quite a lot to break a record by.
We have had a nice amount of moisture this winter but how is the year shaping up?
LOYD: I think this year, 2016 is probably going to be in two parts. It's been good that in December we actually had some snow and for example in the Cascades the mountain snowpack is actually about normal for this time of year. Now given the fact that I would say for about the first half at least of 2016 I still think overall warmer than normal is favored.
And for the second part of the year?
LOYD: I'm thinking the later half of 2016 and into the later part of this decade we're really going to see a realign, you know at the very least the deck in terms of climate indicators is not going to be stacked against us the way it has been for really almost the last two years now so next winter I'm thinking should be a neutral, maybe even a La Nina winter.
And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.
