Weather Outlook for 2021 in Michigan, Our Changing Growing Season Trends
February 19, 2021
Video Transcript
Timely given where we've
been here over the last couple of weeks.
But a, an interesting formation of ice here,
relatively smooth ice, of course,
most years the combination
of wind and wave action
on this part of Lake Superior
result in piles of ice.
And but but this year,
the freezing of the harbor
came relatively quickly and
allowed a smooth surface.
So people have been able to go out and
take advantage of all this ice.
And if actually, if you're,
you're interested in just need
a little bit of downtime here to,
to look at something interesting.
There's a lot of video has been taken of
people skating here downtown
area down in that one,
the harbor front and in market again,
taking advantage of this,
this onset of winter,
我们've header of the last couple of weeks.
And if you can't make it to the very,
very end of the presentation
here, I guess I'll,
I'll cheat and just say there
are big changes coming
here is early as the beginning of next week.
So again, the, the Arctic outbreak that
我们've dealt with were at
the very end stages of it now and again,
I'll get there at the end.
But in general here,
I'm going to look here at
a little bit of a review
of the growing season last year.
Gonna talk then about some,
some climatological trends over where we are
right now currently in
the last couple of decades.
And then end with an outlook of
where we're headed for the near term future.
But I'm going to start,
as I mentioned with review
of last year and the growing season.
And I'm going to start with
a daily temperature summary
from April through the middle of November.
And if you're not familiar with this,
this type of a graphic here,
我们've got our blue values.
Here are the max and minimum temperatures.
I'm using Lansing sort of in the middle of
the state as a representative site.
And again, this is an individual location.
But the things to note here I think,
are basically in the background,
this area in brown.
These are where the normal max and minimum
temperatures are for that particular day
and the time of the year.
And then the on
the top here in the sort of the,
the light red, those are
the record values for that given day.
And then on the blue on the bottom,
those are the record minimum.
So it gives you an idea again, most of time,
ideally we should be or we'd,
我们'd like to see temperatures
close to being in this brown area.
And you can see that early last year during
the spring that we did have
a couple of cold outbreaks.
One during the month of April
and then another here,
the second week of May.
But other than that, then it got
mile and got more moderate.
And we had during most
of the growing season here,
especially the summer, june, July,
and August with a couple of exceptions,
but most of it was at
or above normal temperatures.
You can see a lot of high temperatures,
especially above the normal range, the date.
And then into the fall we got
a lot more variability.
Couple of outbreaks of
some cooler Canadian origin
air all the way into the end.
And I note here this, this,
this very unusual week or 10 day period in
November where we were actually
at or near record high temperatures.
I'm going to get back to that.
That one's an interesting one,
especially with regard to
the fall harvest season last year.
And I'll talk more about that
here in a second.
But in general, again,
the growing season, if you look at all of the
Statistics of it a little bit warmer
than normal in most parts of the state.
And it really dependent
greatly on where you
我们ren't terms of precept.
I'll mentioned that in just a second.
There was though, a couple
of the highlights of
the season or low lights,
if you look at a number of ways.
But we did have
a significant freeze outbreak
that occurred during
the second week of the month.
And you get to hear eighth through the tenth.
Although in northern parts
of the state we had
freezing temperatures as many as ten
days in a row,
which again for for
northern parts of the state,
even that is unusual,
but occurred across much
of the Upper Midwest and the corn belt.
And you can see the graphic here
from the USDA's a world outlook board.
Put this together.
But lots of temperatures here in Michigan,
even in primary growing areas where we
saw the middle and
upper 20s for, for minimum temperatures.
We did have at that point in time,
some crop came up,
even some soy beans that have come up that
我们re nipped or frozen back,
frost it back a little bit.
But I think overall,
as we look back at this,
it could have been much worse than it was
because of the cool conditions
in April and also because of
some excessive precipitation in some areas,
我们我们re still a little bit delayed,
nowhere near what we saw in 2019,
but things were delayed and because of
the cool temperatures are
overwintering craps,
both annuals and perennials.
We're behind schedule at this point in time.
So again, it probably
could have been a lot worse than it was,
but it did cause some problems.
It did cause some, some damage to some of
our perennial crops is
about in terms of
precipitation for last year.
This is an accumulating so same timeframe,
beginning of April
through the middle of November.
And what you're seeing here
once again for Lansing,
this one is a little less representative than
the temperatures be, changes.
But again, remember that this is Lansing.
The green line here
is the actual observations
of precipitation on a daily basis.
And then the brown line
here, that's the normal,
what we should see in terms of normal soft,
the slope of this line is greater.
Of course, it means that we're wetter
than normal and vice versa.
And you can see at least
here for the Lansing site,
a couple of areas of
heavy precipitation accumulation.
One in the middle of May
where he could see the again
the steep line here.
You can also see that happen
at the end of August into
early September when we had another period
of consistent wet weather.
And that was in-between that
was for much of our mid summer.
You can see that the line is
其实莫stly trending.
The slope is below the normal,
so a little bit drier than
normal in this part of the state.
But in contrast to
what we saw for temperatures,
again, this greatly
dependent on where you were.
Northern parts of the state
consistently had above normal temperature
stirring most of normal precipitation rates
during most of the growing season.
And by the middle of May,
as you see here depicted by
our long-term Palmer Drought Index.
And this is up, this is
a long-term climatological index looking at
basically three to six month periods of
excess or deficit precipitation.
You can see that virtually all of
Michigan and much of
the Northern corn belt here.
With dark greens
indicating surplus conditions.
And some of this as a leftover from the very,
very are abnormally wet conditions
back into 2019.
2019, again, for Michigan is
the wettest year on record on average.
So a lot of surplus water
was still left over from
especially from the fall of
2019, it shows up here,
but also because of
that heavy precipitation I
just noted out in
the the glass graphic that you
saw in terms of
temperatures during the summer.
So now we're looking at June, July,
and August, really the
core of our growing season.
You can see a lot of warmer colors,
especially across northern
parts of the Midwest.
So above normal temperatures,
generally from one to
as many as five degrees
above normal for the summer,
warmer than normal conditions
over most of the area.
And actually transitioning to
a little bit cooler than
normal as you go southward
towards the Ohio Valley.
In terms of precipitation, again,
it dependent on where you were
the actual totals here
for the June through
August period or on the left-hand side.
And then it's expressed as a percent
正常的右边。
And so as you can see,
much above normal precipitation rates,
northern part of the state
and northern parts of the region.
But it right out as you
move southward and you
can see some areas here,
especially as you get down towards
Northern Indiana and Ohio,
and then right along IAD,
我们stward all the way out
into Iowa and Nebraska,
you can see an area that really missed out.
One in particular, I'm going to
show this again and which is,
这是我s interesting to note,
我们had the formation of some really severe,
significant drought conditions in
我们stern Iowa during the 2020 growing season.
I also drier again is and this is,
of course this is a key
area production area in,
in the corn belt region here right along IAD,
but especially for western Iowa,
that that was an area that
just was repeatedly missed and
had severe drought stress
for much of the year.
In contrast, a lot of
the rest of the corn belt actually,
they had enough moisture
a lot them enough water
to get them through the growing season.
But that that was one area in particular that
was that dead
definitely have negative impacts.
Here's the US Drought Monitor
as of the beginning of September.
And you can see the southern part
of the state because of what we just
在这里看到的是
either abnormally dry or the D1,
moderate drought, but it was limited once
again to the Southern
couple tiers of counties.
But as you go westward here,
note to that area that we just depicted,
including some D3 and
had been a while since we had
seen extreme drought reported in the Midwest.
But, but western Iowa definitely
had it last year because of,
again, a much, much
below normal precipitation there.
Also note, and this is still
an issue there though.
There was the development
of drought conditions over
many parts of the Great Plains during,
during 2020 that has
继续on to the present and it's
certainly a concern now as we move into
2021 growing season
and what am I talking about?
Well, a lot of the High Plains.
And, and it's it's
actually filled in since then,
but some of these areas have
been drier than normal for, for some time.
Now, scenario to watch here
as the growing season begins this year.
Couple of interesting Mao column,
meteorological,
climatological tidbits
but are certainly worth mentioning.
2020 for
the Northwest Atlantic hurricane season
was the most active on record.
31 storms, 31 of those were named.
And just well, what that's a new record.
There's never been that many.
We went completely through
the regular alphabet,
21 named storms and then the no ahead and
the National Hurricane Center had to go
to the Greek alphabet to fill in.
We've never had that many storms.
There were 13 hurricanes,
six of which became major hurricanes.
Again, just off the charts
in terms of frequency,
it turned out to be the
fifth costliest hurricane season
on record that I guess that's if there's
anything positive to be said about that,
at least it wasn't
as bad as it could have been.
But the reason I bring this up is that two of
these storms actually had
an impact on the Midwest.
And that's, that's pretty
unusual for us here in our part of the world.
The first one was
a tropical storm crystal ball.
This was in the first,
basically 10 to 12 days of the month of June,
and it formed in the Yucatan and then
moved straight northward
up the Mississippi Valley.
And that's the one here I'm highlighting.
Actually moved along the Mississippi and up
through the Upper Peninsula into Ontario.
And again, why am I talking about this?
It was a tropical storm.
It didn't even really was marginal,
never really made it to hurricane status.
On the right hand side here.
Over the last 100 years,
these are the tracks of land falling,
hurricanes and
tropical disturbances in the Atlantic.
And you can see that by vast,
vast majority, most of those
effect the golf or
the Southeast Coast of the US.
And you can see very,
very few pathways up here into the Midwest.
While crystal ball was an exception to that,
not only was an exception,
it was probably a record in terms of being
maybe as far Northwest
as we've had one of these storms go.
And, uh, and the reason I bring it up is
because areas of Wisconsin and
the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
had two to four inches of
rain with the system.
These systems bring massive amounts
of water inlet of course,
我们've all seen that with in other parts of
the US like Texas or
the Gulf Coast, we rarely see that.
But in 2020 we did
我们had a visit from crystal ball.
我们也有
a near miss from tropical storm beta.
And that came in the early part of
September and that move
through the Ohio Valley even then,
even though the centered the circulation
stayed well south of us,
some of the moisture with that did impact and
remember I showed you that
the trace for Lansing,
some of that precipitation was with
that storm across
southern and central parts of Michigan.
So something we don't see very often,
not only create, occur
twice during the 2020 growing season.
Another one, another oddity and
this one's of course is a bad one,
is on the 10th of August,
我们had a well,
just a record breaking the ratio event.
Ratio is a name given
to a cluster of
basically severe thunderstorms that,
that act collectively together
in and what you can see on
the radar time-lapse here
down below shows very
我们ll what a line
of thunderstorms in this case,
他们变得严重e early in the morning
from southeastern South Dakota,
north eastern Nebraska,
and it progressed eastward
through the state of
Iowa into
Northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin,
and then later on that
early evening actually moved
into Southern Michigan and Northern Indiana.
So this line moved
over 800 miles in 14 hours.
Some of the forward speeds
here 60 to 70 miles per hour.
And these were not your
regular garden variety thunderstorms.
These were all severe thunderstorms.
And note that they impacted
large area because again,
it's actually collectively in
a line together moving west to east.
The wind speeds with this,
我们're well, we're, we're incredible.
At least 70 mile per hour winds.
In some cases here
in Eastern Iowa, in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa area, wind speeds of
140 miles per hour we're estimated.
And the other problem with
this particular weather event
is they were over an extended period.
Many of the areas
influenced or impacted here,
especially in Iowa, northern Illinois,
and even into Southwest Michigan,
had strong damaging winds
on the order of 15 to 30 minutes of this.
So again, it wasn't
just a storm that came through and for
a minute or two we had really we're damaging
once this was over an extended period.
And the damage with what
this event was massive, especially in Iowa.
Lots of structural damage house.
My nephew and his wife
live in the Cedar Rapids area and
they're going to have to re roof and
lots of damaged trees falling on cars.
They they total both of
their cars at the damage with this one,
this event on the tenth as of
January and 20 this year 2020
one was up to $11 billion,
which makes this event the most
costly in US history with you
adjust for inflation associated with
severe thunderstorms and that's,
that's hard to do.
So this is a big event.
There was a lot of
agricultural impact as well.
Corn and soybean crops
flattened that we're
not basically not salvageable,
had to be written off.
So there's a lot of especially after
2019 and all the problems with that crop.
There were more problems for
the insurance adjusters and
the growers in 2020 as well,
especially in a state of Iowa.
Fortunately in Michigan,
the storms were weakening as they got
here and the damage wasn't nearly as quite
as severe was in locations to our West.
So it could have been,
it could have been worse.
But this was a very,
very unusual event for
from a meter logical and
climb logical perspective.
If we look at the whole season in
terms of heat accumulation,
growing degree days,
remember I mentioned that the summer was
generally a little bit warmer than normal,
and that's how the degree day
totals ended up here as well.
With about a surplus of anywhere from
50 to 150 base 50 degree day units,
the exception the Upper Peninsula,
where again, remember it was wetter.
There was a lot more, lot more clouds.
And there we've got
a little bit of a deficit,
but no more than 50 units.
So we were fairly close
to the long-term average to a little bit.
Above normal for most of the state,
and that was the case across
the northern part of the, the,
the Great Lakes region and
then the corn belt with little,
with deficits that you go
southward into the Ohio Valley.
And overall in terms of yields,
really dependent on where you were,
but most areas did pretty well.
This is a graphic from USDA that shows
the corn yields and then the
percentage change over the previous year.
Remember 2019 was a very,
very trying and challenging year
for a number but a lot of
我们ather related reasons.
But here in Michigan,
you can see almost a 14 percent increase
from the 2019 crop.
The only, again, the thing that sticks out
in the Midwest and
the corn belt look at Iowa.
And again to two reasons there.
One, the drought and then the ratio of n.
Both of those combined,
they still had state yields
on the order of a 186 bushels.
But, but that was down relative to
the previous year because the
production was just down.
But overall, for most of the area,
我们certainly did better than in 2019
and actually a little bit
above or at the trend line.
So overall,
it worked out fairly well for most folks.
Moving on then into
the fall and into the winter.
A few things about that.
Obviously, we we've seen
evidence of this over the last couple of
我们eks is the major changes.
But our winter for 2021 started off mild.
And here's that, that heat wave that we had
back in the month
of the first two weeks of November.
I was working with
many sing and Matt gammas on
a project looking at dry down of
corn here and head feel plots.
And during that period where
our maximum temperatures in
some cases we're well into the seventies,
whith low humidities had
drying rates on a daily basis.
We were looking at individual
years and we had
drying rates well above 1% per day.
And if you add data, you look at
the collective impact to that.
This warm, dry period here of
一个星期是sulted in millions,
tens of millions of dollars of
positive economic impact because of,
我们ll, we didn't have to dry.
And so if you had
crop out at that point in time again,
this is that first week in November.
You really, really benefited from
this very unusual period here.
We don't get those off
and we're actually looking at that
right now how frequently
that these types of events occurred.
But economic impact in terms of that, it's a,
it's an amazing thing to see that side,
of course, in our favor
to have those weather conditions.
But for most of
the early part of the the late fall,
the early winter,
our temperatures were milder than normal.
Again, this is this is once for Lansing data.
And you can see that most of
the time we're on the upper part of
that brown normal range of
temperatures until
until the last part of January.
And that's when we saw
a big upper air change,
the last 10 day period.
You can see that here with
the Arctic outbreak and polar vortex.
And I'm going to talk more about that
here in just a second.
But we started off mild and then finally hit.
And until, well, there's,
there's a number of
numbers I've put together here,
but I do want to say something about
this, this polar vortex.
We hear this in the media sometimes.
What is this and does it make any sense?
And what we saw happen here?
Well, of course, the jet stream is
the reason the flow of the jet stream
across North America is
the direct result or
the direct influence of our,
our temperatures during the winter,
especially over week-to-week type timeframes.
And for most of most of
December and for most of January,
that the jet stream just was not
allowing the, well, the train,
the transport of air from high latitudes over
Northern Canada and the
Arctic into the lower 48 states.
And when that happens,
我们, we stay above normal.
Most of the air masses that we
我们re that were moving
在美国的中西部
from the Pacific and modified.
And and again, the result was above
normal temperatures
for for loud that timeframe.
Well, one of the one of
the meteorological
influences on winter weather,
and it doesn't happen that often,
but once in a while it does is something
called a sudden stratospheric warming event.
And that's a really,
really wordy way of saying
that we basically couple what happens.
The stratosphere is a second, hi,
the second layer in
the atmosphere after the troposphere.
The troposphere is the lowest layer.
It's where most,
all of our weather takes place.
The lowest, essentially about 10 miles,
nine or ten miles or so at lowest layer.
That's, that's what really matters to us and,
and, and get most of
our weather occurs in that.
But the stratosphere is the next layer
and generally does not influence or
have much of an influence on
our our weather and
climate down at the surface,
but this is an exception to that.
And at certain times we
see a warming of
the stratosphere occur
again in the second layer.
And it actually, when that happens,
it couples the
circulation in the stratosphere,
the second layer with
the circulation down
below in the troposphere,
and that in turn influences the jet stream.
The jet stream is essentially
the upper half or so of
the upper third of the troposphere.
And that's the key one here in
the mid-latitudes, absolutely essential.
It describes our day-to-day and week-to-week.
And when that coupling occurs,
many times we get a,
the jet stream flow.
Instead of being mostly west to
east horizontal meteorologist say,
move things right along,
我们get these big ridges and
troughs or bends in
the pattern in the jet stream.
I'll show you that just here in a second.
But we get the transport of
air either from the Arctic or,
or high latitude areas.
And we can also be under a big ridge where
我们get the transport of subtropical air.
So it can go from, again,
being near normal or
even a little bit milder than normal to
either being much below or much warmer
depending on where you are
relative to these, these events.
So the stratospheric warming
events Act a couple.
Those two layers. And why is it important?
嗯,统计istically we know
我们're looking down out of an image at
the North Pole after
these stratospheric warming events occur.
And they're typically they occur
over a several day period,
maybe a couple of weeks.
But after after those events occur,
maybe another week or two down.
In time, we, we
tend to see in some parts of the world,
like Northern Europe and Northern Asia,
我们tend to see much colder
than normal conditions.
The same is also true over portions of
the central and eastern part of the lower 48.
You can see milder than normal here over
Northeastern North America and Canada.
But these are listed in, again,
these reflect those changes in
the jet stream in the troposphere,
the lowest layer of
the atmosphere that not always,
but tend more often than not to happen.
Well, back in the middle of January,
我们had a sudden stratospheric warming event.
This is from a blog by the name of a guy,
by the name of Judah colon,
an atmospheric scientist who works for
the ADR company and does a weekly update,
does a really nice job of this.
He's a specialist in this
particular phenomenon.
And he broke it down,
as you can see here in yellow,
there were three sort of
pieces of
the stratospheric warming event that
took place over
about a three or four week period.
And ultimately the last one here,
the third one is the one that changed
the jet stream over North America and
lead to this introduction of
unusual or abnormally cold
air into the lower 48.
And that's what you're seeing here.
There's two maps, one of
them and the one on
the left is the important one.
You're looking down at
the North Pole with this and we're
looking now at jet stream flow
over the Northern Hemisphere.
And again, you can see
where these, all these lines are.
That's the really to the
core area of the jet stream.
Where to time of the year where
this the jet stream is as
far equatorward or southward
as it goes in the northern hemisphere,
it will begin to shift and
contract and go back up north
for as our seasons change
in spring goes into summer.
But right now it's about as
far equatorward as we go.
And if you look at North America here,
这是我s on the lower part here,
very, very interesting pattern.
And this big cyclonic upper air low
here that's over southern Canada.
That is a piece of the Arctic.
And that's what's so
bizarre about these events.
We, we don't, it's not,
it's not really canadian.
This feature actually had
its origins up along the North Pole.
Even you could even argue
into Siberia on the other side and then
migrated across and then
ultimately ended up here at Southern Canada.
That rarely happens.
And that's what's so
special about these are so
unusual about
these warming events that we see.
And this one again ended
up in Southern Canada,
basically generated its own cold air masses
one after another that came down from,
from Central and Southern
Canada into the lower 48.
It is the direct, again,
cause of all of
this cold air over the last couple of weeks.
Maybe that mean temperature departures from
normal here for the last 30 days.
And I guess if there's
any there's a couple of things.
Again, it could have been worse
if you look at
the positives and negatives about this.
But the coldest air with this definitely
was over the Great Plains and over
the central part of the US.
Michigan was on, sort of on
the eastern periphery of it.
And there's still another factor
there and that's the great lakes or
the Lake Michigan especially I'll
show you that in just a moment.
但这导致
extreme temperatures and as we've
seen in the media here,
some of the couple of the air masses
with this or were, were historical.
Especially over
the southern plans and what we
saw in Texas and Oklahoma.
And then all across the South,
temperatures that are rarely,
rarely ever observe there.
And of course now we see
all the problems associated
with that because it is so rare.
But this is again,
what they, when they talk about
the polar vortex,
it is literally a piece of
climate that occurs up at the end,
the ice cap in the polar region.
That's translocated
unusually two mid-latitude areas,
and that's, that's what we're seeing.
And we are at the very, very end of it.
I'll, I'll show you that in just a second.
A couple of other things to
just some amazing footage
on the left-hand side here.
This is from the eighth of February,
a visible satellite looking
down at Lake Michigan.
And you can see a couple of things.
One, you can see the snow cover
that's already
fairly extensive at that point in time.
And then the open water of the lake.
You can also see some of this wider,
That's actually the formation of
冰迅速发生。
And that's going to be the next image.
I'll show you the growth of ice here.
We went from virtually no ice on
the Great Lakes now to above normal,
just an period of a couple of weeks.
More importantly, if we
look at air temperatures and these are
surface temperatures on
the eighth of February.
So looking back a little bit more than
a week when the first really cold air mass,
you can see all sorts of
minus 20 is minus 25s here
with air underneath it was right under
the middle of that that
that upper air feature,
that cutoff flow that I showed
you and it poured into the lower 48.
The coldest air here is
just across the border at that point in time.
And this air mass actually
ended up going straight Southward.
That's the one really cause
problems for the Southern Great Plains,
including Texas and then
all all along the gulf for several years.
That's that's the ER mess.
It made it down that far.
So again, literate for them,
it's even more rare than it is for
us because they're further
South and further away
from the source region of this.
But the other thing to note about this,
look at Michigan here
and look at the difference in temperature.
West to east, where we've
got minus twenties on the other side,
a lake in Central Wisconsin.
And then temperatures here,
this was actually a forecast product
and it turn out not to get quite that cold,
but temperatures are clearly
at least 20 degrees warmer
on the other side of the lake.
And again, that is that is
courtesy of all of
this relatively mild water.
Here.
Water temperatures in
Lake Michigan were on the order of
the mid and upper 30s when this happened.
You can see the clouds here.
Basically it's instantaneous convection
is at frigid, air,
goes across and absorbs
energy and moisture and
then moves from west to east.
But we were moderated and
buffered by Lake Michigan.
It turned out that superior
already had some ice on it in the West.
And so the western part of
the Upper Peninsula was not and that shadow,
but most of the lower peninsula was a lot of
the wind here when flow is
generally west to east.
And so a couple more.
Again, just show the,
what happened is the cold air.
意图或冷空气移动
in for the longer haul.
Some cases more than 40 inches of
snowfall fell in this area
with some of that was
lake effect that we did.
We did have a lot of heavy lake effect
in certain areas.
And in terms of percent of normal,
especially as we go to
our south and west across the corn belt,
you can see 300,
400% of, of normal snowfall.
So what had been a winter with
abnormally low snowfall quickly
became the exact opposite with this,
with this huge change in weather.
And now we have,
I think you could argue one of
the more extensive deep snow packs across
the upper Midwest and
the Great Lakes that we've
seen in several years
that's here in the middle.
Although again, lake effect
snowfall this winter because
of all the mild ear,
has been unusually white, unusually low.
And some parts of Michigan
before the onset of this,
我们're
less than 25 percent of normal snowfall.
A lot of it again, because of
the lack of lake effect snow fall,
but we've we've made up for
lost time in the last couple of weeks.
And then one last one.
And this one if, especially if
you're interested in perennials and,
and an extreme low temperatures,
this is an important one.
On the right-hand side here,
this is literally hours hold.
These are extreme minimum temperatures
so far this winter.
Most of these occurred
in the last several days.
This graphic again depicts an illustrates
how incredible
the lake effect like moderation was.
And these are extreme law.
We have some of the state here
back on Tuesday and Wednesday morning,
我们had the lowest temperatures in the winter
in central lower Michigan,
Southern lower Michigan.
其中大多数都在order of
ten to 15 below Fahrenheit,
but near the lake.
And it's not just the Western side,
but also bordering Lake Erie.
And here on, on the,
on the eastern side of the state.
Or low temperatures have been above 0.
In some cases here we had there,
even in the low teens, that's the lowest.
It's been just, just
remarkable influence of the water.
You can see that here,
especially in West Central
and Northwestern lower Michigan.
Again, some of these, the extremes so
far have only been in the low teens
versus the other side of
Lake I I I didn't plot was constant here.
We will, but many of
those were in the other order of 25 a law.
If you're into the records
of the climate part of it.
Note here up and Iron County,
Tom is old stomping grounds here.
We hit we had a minus 46 that I'm
a sock that was on the
seven the morning of the 17th.
So incredible variability across
the landscape here with
those extreme minimum temperatures.
But, but the lakes
makes such a huge difference.
A couple of things here, I want
to move on quickly.
We could, we could dwell on them
on the winter and the meteorology.
And I'll get back to the very end.
But a couple of trends I think
that are important to
put some perspective here.
What you, some of what you've just seen,
Michigan is getting wetter and still
continues or warmer and wetter.
That's the general tendency
or direction trajectory that we're in.
These are
annual temperatures average of course,
of the year for the state as a whole.
And you can see that on average,
我们're about two degrees Fahrenheit,
warmer now than we were about 50 years ago.
But couple, couple other things.
你可以看到,蓝线,
that's a nine-year moving average.
I've, I've put in with the data to,
to look at some of the, the longer term
decadal type of trends, it's leveled off.
And so at least in terms
of annual warming here,
for the last decade or so,
我们've sort of been stuck
or at a sort of a level area.
A lot of the warming that occurred
back in the eighties and nineties,
and it has at least head
is temporarily slowing down.
The other thing you could note here,
there has been a little bit more
variability from year to year.
We've had some very, very
much some of the warmest years
on record or the warmest years
on record in the last decade.
But we've also had some unusually
cold or cool years,
2013 in particular.
So variabilities, another issue that's,
that's important with,
with these temperatures.
It's also important to note that most of
the warming has occurred in the cold season,
in the winter, December, January, February,
until a little bit lesser extent in
the spring and the fall.
And at night, we've had
our minimum temperature is increasing
more rapidly than our maximum temperatures
I'll show in a day blend just a moment.
But looking at the growing season here,
this is looking at the months
of April through September.
You can see a similar pattern with
these with slowly warming temperatures,
especially over the last 50 years,
but some leveling off
during the last 10 to 15 years,
just like what you just saw.
If we look at degree day units.
And this is for a site
here in West Central lower Michigan,
here at Big Rapids, which is representative.
This is not quite as long,
a period 9800 through last year,
但这些都是年度总额
in the lighter red
and then growing season total.
So again, we've defined
is May through September.
You can see fairly straight line.
So at warming is not
necessarily translating into
higher degree day totals.
Little bit, little bit
different than what we might expect,
but they've been, they've been fairly level.
There's more nuance here
that I'm going to show you here.
If we look at maximum
temperatures during the summer,
so June, July, and August,
and we look at that trend.
You can see it's,
it's also relatively flats,
long-term,
little bit of an upward trend, but,
but generally still sideways or flat.
So the maximum temperatures,
there's not much going on
with those minimum textures.
You remember I mentioned that,
that there's been more warming at
night with
a minimum temperatures and it has this,
this is a really good example.
Those so same area.
This is a, this is the climate division,
the west central part of the state.
So about an eight or nine County area,
but it's representative.
You can see clearly that
especially over the last 50 years,
there has been a warming of
our nighttime wear minimum temperature.
So the addition,
all that additional temperature,
mean temperature that we're going up,
most of it is, is
the Min taps and in a night.
Another important one.
What about extremes?
And here we're looking.
This is four for three rivers down at St. Joe
County through this N4 for Eric,
but it's it's a relatively
representative for actin again,
and this one goes back to 920.
But here we're looking at
bright red number of
days each year at 90 or greater,
brown 95 or greater.
And then we're thrown another one in
here that you don't see very often,
but I think it's also important economically.
The number of minimum temperatures that stay
above 70 each night or at or above 70.
So warm nights, what's happening with those?
And as we look at this,
it's actually,
the long-term trend is downward.
So we've tended to have fewer
extreme events with time.
There's in some series and Michigan,
我们see a little bit of an increase here over
the last ten years or so
of the high temperature events,
but that the long-term
trend is still downward.
The Clearly the peak decade
of all these extreme max temperatures.
It's back in the 1930s
and that's still the benchmark,
greatest frequency that we have for those.
But the other interesting one
is if we look at the blue,
there has been an increase
in those warm nights.
And many of those,
I'm sure many of you have heard about this,
but there is a correlation with the number of
warm nighttime temperatures at or above
70 degrees and reductions
in some of our annual crop yields,
particularly corn and soybeans.
It's a bad thing in parts of the central US,
especially as you go south in
the Ohio Valley and
the Lower Mississippi Valley,
middle Mississippi Valley, there are,
there are definitely distinctive
statistical links between
drop-off you'll drop offs
and the number of these events.
So it's, it's using,
the crop is using
resources at night, of course,
when there's no light and
it's basically just a loss.
And that's, that's one that we need to take.
We need to, especially given what we saw
with these trends to keep an eye on.
But we're worth the northern part
of the region and we really aren't.
It's the same with the same threat or
same vulnerability that they
are in areas further south.
11, last thing to seasonality is changing.
This is a graphic. Once again,
it's freelancing, it's representative.
What it's showing is that day
of the last freezing temperatures of the
springtime or
the spring season that's in black here.
Those are getting earlier with time.
The first freezing temperatures of the fall
up here in red, getting later.
And what we have in the middle here in
green are frost-free growing season.
It's increasing because of both of those.
There's longer a longer period on the order,
two to three weeks more
now than we had just 50 years ago.
That's a pretty big change.
So we have a, that's a positive thing.
But as you saw, the degree days,
there's not necessarily so much
in terms of extra degree days there.
It's just that we have
a longer frost-free season.
Couple of things really quickly.
I mentioned Michigan's getting water.
Here's the precipitation trend with time.
Ten to 15 percent more precept.
Now that 15 years ago,
three to four more inches of water
on average doesn't mean every
year, but that's the average.
That's a lot of water.
And and I think my opinion is,
what about those extreme maximum temperatures
我们're seeing in other parts of the US,
like the Western US, we're seeing
major spikes in the number of
those events, I think.
And there's a lot of
evidence to support this,
that the additional water in the landscape,
especially in the warm season,
it takes energy to evaporate water.
And that's actually what's preventing
our maximum temperatures from
increasing more than they would be otherwise.
There's a clearly there's clearly
an effect of having
this additional precipitation.
And as you can see from the graphic here,
really this upward trend,
it shows no signs of,
of, of dissipating or abating.
We're still on an upward trend.
Dod additional precipitation is both because
of more what days and
that's what you see here.
For three rivers increase.
The light green here is
the fraction of days with measurable precept.
We're also seeing increases in
the number of multiple wet day events.
What day is it follows?
Both of those are increasing.
So again, part of the additional precept,
我们are also saying at the,
or the other side, consecutive dry days.
This is if you're an irrigation management,
this is, this is an interesting one.
This is looking at
three rivers and St. Joe County,
two different periods here.
One mid-century last year
and then one more recent.
But because of the additional wet days that
the strings of dry days
that we have to deal with in-between,
the length of those is decreasing
and that's what this basically shows.
It's not a lot, but it is,
it is definitely discernible.
And so by a couple of days
that the dried a string that
我们would expect to see now is
shorter than what we
have observed in the past.
We're also seeing more heavy rain events
are more precipitation per event.
That's what this graphic, the red circles are
all increases in the number of
heavy events that's increasing as well.
Another one looking at
the 1% heaviest precipitation,
extreme events are increasing.
That's what we saw evidence of that,
a whole lot of evidence of
this in the last couple of decades.
And an important one here,
this is looking at the June,
July, and August period, the summer.
Here's the preset and you can
look, it's it's flatline.
So there's some seasonality what the
precipitation trends in Michigan as well.
大部分的增长
precipitation had been in the winter,
spring, and fall, not as much in the summer.
There's a little bit of an increase,
but it's not nearly as much
as what we're seeing and other seasons,
but more importantly here for agriculture,
the red here is
a standard deviation
copied at the variability.
Look what happens here over
the last few decades.
As we get an increase in the number of
我们t days heavy events,
the variability is decreasing.
And that's a positive thing.
It means that, that the rainfall is,
is essentially more reliable or more
consistent than it has been in the past.
And that's that's one way we can't.
It's hard to put a finger on,
but I think it's a very,
it's a very positive thing.
Doesn't mean we won't have
problems with lack of water.
We've seen that, but it does mean,
and that's what this graphic here shows.
We still have droughts, but on average,
you're looking at the palmar z-index
here, which is a drought index.
They're less frequent and less severe on
average than we have
had in Michigan in the past.
Again, that's a positive thing.
We also have, of course,
too much of a good thing.
And this is looking at April
and May precipitation totals.
I mentioned that a lot of
the increase has been in the cool season.
Well, unfortunately, part of it,
as we saw with an exclamation point In 2019.
This is also true for the fall.
Unfortunately not quite as
extensive or not quite as large a trend here,
but look at this increase,
an extra one to two
inches on average that we're
seeing in May and June
versus what we did 50 years ago.
And again, that's the timing
is obviously poor or bad for that.
So again, you can,
you can have too much of a good thing.
As we saw in 2019.
We've also seen increases in humidity.
The water vapor in the air.
That's not surprise given
all the additional precipitation,
It's also the raw material
for more precipitation.
所有这些东西
are increasing. If you ask why?
Well, it has to do with the jet stream
and the patterns that cause precipitation.
Midwest and the patterns
are more conducive for that.
I think Bruce, I I'm I'm behind here,
but do I have time just to do
a real quick wrap-up flow? Yeah, Absolutely.
Jeff,
我们've we're towards the end of the week,
so we're in good shape.
I'll just get probably
too carried away with these things,
but do want to talk about where we are
because we are right now at a transition.
In terms of the meteorology.
I showed you the, the problem here,
the last two weeks with
the polar vortex, et cetera.
Well, It's on its last legs,
or at least it's not on its last legs,
but it's going to move somewhere else.
I think that's just as important here.
And what I'm showing you right now is a,
a forecast for next week
for jet stream pattern across.
And note that there is no polar
low here in Southern Canada
and the northern US anymore.
And that our jet stream flow forecasts for
that timeframe is forecast
to be much more west to east.
Right hand side here.
This is for the 22nd
2月27日。
These are
temperature anomalies at the surface.
And you can see we've,
我们've got some warmer colors here.
So it's actually forecast
to be or the, again,
this is the numerical forecasts
guides certainly suggest a major warming.
We're going to see that beginning
on Monday in Michigan.
And actually a thought for
several days for a lot
of the state will be above freezing,
probably not in
the far northern part of the state,
but we might even push
40 on Tuesday in a couple spots,
but certainly we'll see some melting finally,
in some far AFTRA and
extended cold front period.
And again, the, the issue is
here that the jet stream has changed.
If you're again into the meteorology,
我们look at this map here.
This is looking at a large area,
this blue area here that's
out in the middle of the Atlantic.
And also this trough here,
that's the,
that's the remnants of the polar vortex.
It's again,
few thousand miles to our east. That's fine.
Good riddance. It's on its way to Europe.
But that's actually what's left of that,
that unusually cold area,
if you're wondering where it went.
Well, that's that's where we're going to
get air from the Pacific here at least for,
for the early part of next thing.
Now on the leading edge of that warmer air,
我们will see will see
some lake effect snow fall here today,
especially in Western lower Michigan.
In portions of the Upper Peninsula,
there's enough ice on superior where
the amount of lake effect
There's actually reduce a little bit.
But tomorrow should be
a nice day for most of the state.
And then on Sunday, the first warmer air
that's not arctic origin moves towards us,
will cease of snow
on the leading edge of that,
beginning in the afternoon and into
the evening and probably in
周一早晨,
我们could see a few inches that
especially central and northern lower,
maybe maybe some, some places get
four or five inches so it will be
shovel snow in it.
But then of course it's on the leading edge.
The good news is, is then we
see much milder temperatures
on Monday, Tuesday,
and Wednesday, and
then a little bit more colder,
but seasonable, cold air
moves in for the latter part of next week.
Not not anything outrageous
like where we've been.
Precipitation totals here actually,
nothing to write home about
most serious quarter three tenths of an inch.
Most of that will be on Sunday and it early
Monday here
over the next week, the rest of the time.
And so lake effect that they will be
generally dry, mid, mid-range.
Same, same general pattern
here that we're seeing
from some of the other.
Well, the forecast guides I just
showed note here over North America,
我们've got traffic out
over the western part of North America,
ridging over the Southeast Michigan sort
of in-between those two
with mostly west to east that
will allow some colder air here,
but also probably a fairly
active storm track through the Ohio Valley.
That's something very typical of Flaminia,
这是我s what we have right now.
And that is sort of the theme
that we're looking at for
the extended time range
into March and actually into the spring,
looking at our at least for the medium range,
six to ten days, almost identical to this,
but through part of that first week in March,
milder than normal temperatures has
been a while since we've
been able to say that,
and also above normal precipitation totals.
So at least for the precept here,
this is a classic La Nina type of,
of upper air pattern and weather pattern.
And it influenced our March,
certainly our new long
lead out looks for March.
If we look at
our sea surface temperatures here,
these were yesterday, we can still see
blue area here cooler
than normal sea surface temperatures.
That's the classic signature of La Nina,
比正常的水冷却器
the Eastern and Central Pacific.
That is, it's not
as extreme as it was a couple of months ago.
It is moderating. And I'll
show you that the outlook is for
conditions to become neutral go back to more
normal here as we
move toward the end of the spring,
There's one other area here outlined in red.
然后这是一个关注。
And during La Nina years,
when we have the formation of warmer than
normal sea surface temperatures
in the Northern Pacific.
It's a little bit of a flag.
We have associated this and I
only want to bring it up, but it, it's, it's,
sometimes we see this with drought forms
in the central part of
the country and actually has to do with the,
the upper airflow here.
And while the reason I've
actually had a couple of people asked
me about this and varies.
This is the this is the feature
that we had in 988.
If you're been around my old card,
you're like me and remember,
88 is definitely the most significant drought
that in 2012 of our generation
or the last couple generations.
But in 988, we had
a very strong La Nina event that
继续into the spring with very,
very abnormally warm
sea surface temperatures here.
And it was one of the causal mechanisms
leading to the wood that year and 88,
what turned out to be the worst,
probably early
season drought that we had seen,
certainly in 50 years in the Midwest.
But that said, it's against something.
To keep in mind.
We do have warmer warmer
than normal water out here.
It's not nearly as extensive,
nor is it as warm as what we saw in, in 988.
So again, that's history
does repeat itself in these things.
But I think in this case it's,
it's very likely that it won't,
but it is something to watch.
De la Nina is forecast to
generally to dissipate here
over the next several weeks and into
the that's what you see here.
The blue line here is forecast
of of consolidated forecast.
For
sea surface temperatures and that Pacific,
if it's negative, of course
it's still anemia.
If it's more than if it's positive, it's,
it's generally an El Nino
and a neutral sort of in the middle.
But what you can see
from the Outlook and then
the probabilities are here for the season.
And the right hand side is that
the La Nina is forecast to gradually
我们aken towards the spring
in the summer and
be neutral here for the summer.
So again, I think that
that that's the important thing right now,
and I think that that's
probably the best bet.
And then looking at the new lonely
that looks here at the very end,
you can see for March,
the new outlook does call.
It, bumped us into a little bit
milder than normal mean temperatures
are in that category.
What are the normal classic classic La Nina?
That's why that is. So the,
the mild or the normal temperatures here will
result mainly of
the numerical forecast guidance.
Not so much the alanine yet,
but this precipitation pattern is,
is what we typically see
in the spring with with
anemia and then for
the three month March through May,
similar, very, very similar conditions.
Little bit Min normal to
above normal temperatures favored,
but also for the increase precepts signal.
So more of
the active storm track,
that's going to be an issue.
I'm sure as we start to
think about the growing season.
At least that's what these outlooks
are suggesting right now.
And then for the growing season itself,
I won't test your eyesight here.
But what they do suggest for
the upcoming season as we go back
to neutral and so cycle warmer than normal,
mean temperatures across a lot
of the corn belt and the Great Lakes.
And at least for
the early to middle part of
the growing season,
maybe above normal precipitation.
But you can see by
mid-summer that goes away to
the equal chance a scenario
and then continuous for the remainder.
So there is continuity in these,
but it does suggest at least for
the early part of the season, once again,
maybe what are the normal that,
that could be an issue as we approach,
it sees a map up and I again,
apologize for going a little bit over here.
Bruce, I don't know if there's any time for
any questions or comments,
but thank you very much for your attention.
And I'm hoping wishing
best of luck and hopefully
will enjoy some more normal temperatures
here within the next several days.
I'd be good.
Eric. Eric has got
the survey link in there at the end,
so thanks Jeff for the update in there.
I think we've got a couple of Q&A questions.
I'll try to get those
copied for you to get them
sent out to you that it's blank
and answer those in there too.
So what we'll do now
is we because of the RUP credits,
我们close out these sessions each
time and so that we
can record the log there for folks that have
been involved in the on
the on the call there.
So please fill out the survey.
The survey is the
in that chat, in the chat screen,
that link in there is the link to
get to the RU piece helps
us also understand if
the program met your needs.
And so again,
thanks Jeff for setting the stage
for us for the rest of
今天的讨论and by our weather and,
and perhaps as your farm
ready for extreme weather.
So we're, we're about to close
up this session and we will
see you back at the next one hopefully.
So. Thank you for participating.
Eric, anything else that I
need that I forgot to mention?
The survey link is in there for those of you
who have been having issues with that,
go ahead and either click on the hotlink,
copy it into a new web browser,
or if none of that works,
send us an email and we can help you.
We have those questions.
I think we've gotten captured,
so I'll send those to Jeff.
非常感谢你, folks for
participating and we'll close
this out here shortly.