NASHVILLE, TENN. (RFD NEWS) — Farm country is experiencing sharp temperature swings as winter weather continues to come and go, creating highly variable conditions across much of the country. Meteorologists say this kind of pattern is typical during the transition from winter into spring.
According to agricultural meteorologist John Baranick, the back-and-forth shifts are part of a normal seasonal transition, especially in March and April.
“I mean, this is usually how it works: we’re trying to go from the really cold temperatures in winter to the really hot ones in summer,” Barnack explains. “And when you go through that transition period here, March and April especially, I mean, that’s the perfect time to just ride it. Get some bursts of heat coming through; it won’t last long, and get some cold bursts coming through. They won’t last long, and you just kind of figure out how everything is kind of moving along there. But as long as you can ride the roller coaster and understand that your forecast here for the next two weeks might be changing on a daily basis, quite significantly.”
Meteorologists are also watching a potential shift from La Niña conditions toward El Niño later this year. While social media has labeled the possible event a “Godzilla El Niño,” experts say the intensity remains uncertain—but the signal for a stronger pattern is there.
“I guess you could just throw whatever word you want on; gigantic, mega, ultra, whatever, I guess. Use whatever adjective you want, but there is a pretty significant threat,” Barnack said. “Well, I don’t know if threat’s the right word, but a possibility is there of a really strong El Niño coming back into play here later this year.”
Barnack says the incoming weather pattern is likely to be strong, no matter what you call it.
“El Niño looks almost like a guarantee,” he said. “Things are setting up there in the Pacific Ocean, where it’s going to get warm rather quickly over the next couple of months. Just how warm that’s going to be is a bit of a question mark.”
Principal Atmospheric Scientist Eric Snodgrass with Nutrien agrees that it is still too early to know how conditions could develop.
“Could this La Niña, which is dead, transition so fast that the atmosphere reverses the wind field across the equatorial Pacific and gives us one of these powerful El Niños? Yeah. Will it be called a Godzilla? Sure. I mean, it could be one of the more powerful ones on record, but we’re not past what’s called the spring forecast barrier, and we won’t get past it until June,” Snodgrass continued, “And don’t forget, we’re thinking a lot about it for summer. But listen to this statistic very carefully: the correlation coefficient on El Niño events in summer precipitation patterns in the Corn Belt is 30 percent.”
Snodgrass says even if El Niño develops, its role in summer rainfall is limited.
“You can only explain about nine percent of the variability in summer rainfall with El Niño. It’s a way different factor than it is in winter, where that probably triples. You can probably explain 30 to 40 percent of the winter-time precipitation variability with El Niño or La Niña, but only about nine to 10 percent in summer.”
He adds that forecast models do not currently agree on how El Niño could impact weather patterns across the U.S.
