August Weather Extremes Pt 2
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. We’ve seen some weather extremes the past couple of years, from last year’s heat dome to last winter’s wetter and colder weather.
University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor, Cliff Mass says yes, it is a bit warmer these days, but how much of it have we caused? …
MASS … “Some of its probably us, but the natural could have contributed to the recent warming. But we’ve warmed up one or two and, you know, some of it is probably increasing CO2. So that’s probably fair enough.”
Weather extremes, Mass says are going to happen …
MASS … “There’s always extremes. See, that’s the point. The weather is never uniform. And because of patterns in the atmosphere, wave patterns in the atmosphere, there will be warm places and colder places, right, warmer than normal and colder than normal.”
And for this year, Mass says, we’re likely past the extreme highs …
MASS … “Well no, I mean, the rest of the month is going to be cool and it’s cooling down, 70s and 60s. So, I mean, there’s no heat wave coming up. I mean, I think the wildfire stuff is all going to get better. You know, if you look at the DNR numbers, we’re actually way less than normal.”
Thankfully, Mass says the fires weren’t as bad as they have been …
MASS … “This year is going to come in, in terms of area burned, much less than normal, much less than normal. So, this is going to be a low fire year here in the
Northwest. So, we’ve had a few fires, but it’s not as bad as it had been.”
Mass says the wet winter and spring set us up pretty well for the summer, and fortunately the easterly winds didn’t come in as strong as 2020.
