Drought Worries Pt 1
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. The Seattle Times, among others, posted a story last week that our spring rains have not been nearly enough to overcome our Northwest drought.But near term, University of Washington professor of atmospheric sciences, Cliff Mass says there’s no sign our wetter and cooler spring is going away …
MASS … “I think it looks very favorable right now in the Columbia Basin. And, there’ll be a few showers in the mountains, but nothing, that’s not going to affect them. And then this week, a ridge is going to develop mid-week so it’s going to warm up so they’re going to get temperatures, but not too hot. And then we see, down the line next week, you know, it looks like another systems comes in so the rain will come back again.”
The pattern of the past two months, Mass says has all but cured our drought …
MASS … “What’s happened already has happened. Nobody can argue about that. We’ve been cold and moist, right. So, I mean, that’s the truth, right, and the fact that it’s happened so late into May. The snowpack is absolutely unbelievable right now. I mean, this has already happened, right. This is going to impact no matter what happens. And then our models going forward don’t have any big heat waves. It has more rain coming and La Nina’s strengthening not weakening.”
And the Drought Monitor that everyone relies on, Mass says is not objective …
MASS … “Somebody selectively looks at all kinds of stuff and makes a decision that has nothing to do with what the impacts are going to be. So, the impacts in Eastern Washington are, there are going to be no impacts. But yet they have the extreme drought. I mean it doesn’t make any sense.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on the drought scare tactics that need to stop.