While winter weather has been impacting the central United States this week, the upper Midwest has remained quite dry.
One meteorologist says that there is a potential for drought in northern states, and the La Niña weather pattern is playing a big role.
According to Mace Michaels, “It’s definitely directly related to La Niña, but in a strong La Niña year, or even a well-established La Niña, we usually end up being colder than normal. We are colder, but we’re just not significantly colder, and we also usually end up being wetter than normal. That is one thing we haven’t been. The main jet pathway has, as I mentioned, been more active. It’s been more active to our south. When we do get into a northwesterly flow, we’re on the cold side of it, so we just tend to get those quick clippers— putting down very little or just a small dusting or an inch or two of snow, and that doesn’t help on our snowpack, obviously.”
Michael says that current dry weather patterns do not appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.
“Trending through the next several weeks, it looks like we’re going to stay in that pattern. So, if the jets are real active, the pathway will be to our south. If we do get into that northwest flow, it ends up being just kind of minor systems,” he explains. “Sure, we could pick up two, three, or four inches here or there, but you’re not going to get a big moisture-laden storm anytime soon.”
January is typically the upper Midwest’s snowiest part of the year, that means farmers will likely miss out on the snowmelt that often supplies a nice bit of moisture to the groun in early Spring.
