Mild temps discussed at this year's Prairie Grains Conference

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - El Nino is in full force. But the North Pacific Ocean “blob” and the Arctic Oscillation are battling El Nino for supremacy - and the big winner should be Upper Midwest residents hoping for continued mild temperatures.

“You’ve heard me speak before about (weather) cycles. And that’s really what it’s all about. This year, in a word, it’s El Nino,” said Leon Osborne with the Regional Weather Information Center at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. “It is pervasive, it is powerful, it is going to be record-setting.”

But other weather phenomena are in play, too, he said.

Osborne spoke Dec. 10 at the annual Prairie Grains Conference in Grand Forks. The two-day event, which began Dec. 9, was sponsored by eight Minnesota and North Dakota agricultural organizations and attracted more than 700 people, most of them from northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota.

The event is geared in part for wheat, barley and soybeans growers, but also tries to offer sessions, such as Osborne’s presentation, that are of general interest, said Doyle Lentz, chairman of the North Dakota Barley Council, one of the eight groups involved in the conference.

Osborne speaks every year at the conference. His presentation, which this year featured his forecast for the winter of 2015 to ’16 and the early part of the 2016 growing season, is one of the event’s highlights.

He said next year’s weather, especially early on, will be influenced heavily by El Nino. The complex weather pattern, which results from from variations in water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, can contribute to milder winters in the Upper Midwest.

It likely will do so again this year, increasing the odds of above-average temperatures in December, January and February, Osborne said.

But El Nino, which is nearing its maximum strength now, is expected to be moderate or “decay” by spring, causing March and April to be colder than usual, he said.

Other factors also will influence the region’s weather this winter.

The Arctic oscillation is one of them. The large-scale and largely unpredictable weather pattern affects the extent to which cold polar air extends south. The Arctic oscillation has both positive and negative phases. In its positive phase - which contributed mightily to the Upper Midwest’s exceptionally mild winter in 2011 to ’12 - less polar air moves south. In its negative phase, more polar air moves south.

The Arctic oscillation is in its positive phase now, but is expected to turn negative. If it does, it would contribute to colder temperatures in late winter, Osborne said.

The so-called North Pacific Ocean “blob” - a large mass of warm water in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of North America - will influence Upper Midwest weather, too, Osborne said.

“Yeah, we like to have these very technical names for features in the ocean,” Osborne joked.

The blob wasn’t a factor the past two times when El Nino was especially powerful.  “It has an influence on what we typically expect from El Nino. We just can’t focus on El Nino,” Osborne said.

“Will it impact on our weather? Yes, it will,” Osborne said of the blob.  “We will see more precipitation in this El Nino than we’ve seen in past ones.”

Average precipitation during the rest of winter is expected in most of North Dakota and northwest Minnesota, Osborne said.