‘Weatherman’ has great news for farmers

Spring will deliver rain and cool temperatures this year, saturating the soil and setting up a good year for wheat crops, a weather expert told farmers Tuesday morning during Spokane Ag Expo.

The wet spring will give way to a warm, dry summer.

Art Douglas, the well-known “weatherman,” has been divining the weather for Spokane farmers for years. His well-respected predictions were welcomed by farmers in need of some good news this year.

Overall, Douglas said predictions offer a “great outlook” for Inland Northwest wheat farmers.

Douglas is chairman of the atmospheric science department at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., and a big draw at the three-day agriculture show that continues Wednesday and Thursday in downtown Spokane.

He was right on target last year when he predicted a dry winter followed by steady rains in April, May and June. The conditions led to a bumper crop in many parts of the state.

When asked if June rains would bless wheat fields again this year, Douglas declined to speculate.

Farmers say they need a decent rain in May and another in June to produce a great harvest. However, Douglas said plant hybrids better able to handle drought are giving farmers another means of managing weather.

Douglas said the warm, dry autumn in the Pacific Northwest was caused partly by a warm body of water in the central Pacific Ocean. In November, that water and its high-pressure system moved north. The result: cooler water and storm systems formed and blew right into the Northwest, leading to snowfall, cold weather, and then nearly constant wet weather since Christmas.

Douglas said the region probably won’t be subject to further bitter cold weather this winter.

June through September, Douglas said, should be warm and dry as a La Niña strengthens. It’s a situation that will contribute to the droughts already gripping parts of the Southwest, including the wheat growing states of Oklahoma and Texas.

The drought could even spread north into the corn belt states.