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NORMAL WEATHER SHOULD BE COMING BACK TO MUCH OF THE UNITED STATES THIS SPRING AND SUMMER
AS THE LA NINA WEATHER PATTERN BREAKS UP. SO SAYS U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE METEOROLOGIST
BRAD RIPPEY.As we move into the summer, we’re hoping certainly for all of the areas that
have suffered through extreme weather in two thousand and eleven and early two thousand
twelve will see a return to much more normalcy across the United States. That could lead
to improved rainfall in places like Texas. Hopefully not as much moisture to the north
where we saw flooding in two thousand eleven across the Ohio and the Mississippi and the
Missouri basin.BUT RIPPEY WARNS THAT A LA NINA BREAK UP WILL BE GRADUAL AND THAT EXTREME
WEATHER COULD OCCUR AS THE ATMOSPHERE RECOVERS.It’s like stirring a cup of coffee. Even after
you take the spoon out you’ll continue to see the rotation for a while. Well the atmosphere
is like that, once you get it wound up in a certain way it does take it a while for
it to spin down. So we do expect some continuing or lingering impacts of La Nina even after
the ocean returns to normal.AND DESPITE LA NINA’S DECLINE, RIPPEY SAYS LARGE PARTS
OF THE U-S COULD STILL SUFFER LONG TERM DROUGHT BECAUSE OF WARMING WATER IN THE NORTHERN PACIFIC.Since
about nineteen ninety eight, we’ve been in a phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
that tends to favor drought from southern California to the central and southern Plains.
As long as we are in this particular phase we could see more common droughts across that
part of the country.BUT RIPPEY SAYS EVEN DURING DROUGHTS LIKE IN TEXAS, RAINY PERIODS CAN
STILL HAPPEN.Maybe for the next decade or so we’ll see greater than normal likelihood
of drought in Texas, but that’s not to say that we won’t see wet weather as well because
we certainly have at times in the last ten or fifteen years in Texas.FOR THE U-S DEPARTMENT
OF AGRICULTURE I’M BOB ELLISON.