12-30 NWR  El Nino fizzling

12-30 NWR El Nino fizzling

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
This is your Northwest report for Friday, December 30 by David Sparks and just as we in the Northwest were sledding and skiing because of cold weather and lots of snow which in terms of agriculture increases our snowpack dramatically, some foreboding news. For that strong El Niño, which is the warming of the waters of parts of the Pacific Ocean, forecasters were expecting a strong cooling called La Niña. However La Niña appears to be a big fizzle as far as Pacific water temperatures. Department of Agriculture meteorologist Mark Rustburg: "Right now we are kind of on the edge between La Niña and neutral." Rustburg says that even if the water temperatures stay cool enough to meet the La Niña definition, they may only stay cool for a month or two, which is "too short a period to be officially considered a La Niña." La Niña normally means smaller crops down in Argentina and Brazil but now there may not be a La Niña and Rustberg says of course, "whatever happens down there is going to affect our markets and right now we are looking at big crops coming out of Argentina and Brazil."

La Nina often means wetter winters in the Pacific Northwest and often means dry weather for the U.S. Southwest and parts of California, which haven't quite recovered from a four-year drought.

The Food and Drug Administration has amended the new animal drug regulations to implement the veterinary feed directive (VFD) drugs section of the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996. A VFD drug is intended for use in animal feeds, and as of New Years Day such use of the VFD drug is permitted only under the professional supervision of a licensed veterinarian.

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