{"id":26682,"date":"2016-06-02T10:19:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T15:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=26682"},"modified":"2016-06-08T14:17:31","modified_gmt":"2016-06-08T19:17:31","slug":"forecast-calls-for-la-nina-increased-chance-for-drought-in-oklahoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2016\/06\/02\/forecast-calls-for-la-nina-increased-chance-for-drought-in-oklahoma\/","title":{"rendered":"Forecast Calls for La Ni\u00f1a, Increased Chance For Drought In Oklahoma"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_26693\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26693\" alt=\"Mason Bolay on his family's farm near Perry in north-central Oklahoma. \" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/06\/PHOTO-6-2-LaNina2-e1464880582203.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/06\/PHOTO-6-2-LaNina2-e1464880582203.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/06\/PHOTO-6-2-LaNina2-e1464880582203-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/06\/PHOTO-6-2-LaNina2-e1464880582203-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/06\/PHOTO-6-2-LaNina2-e1464880582203-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mason Bolay on his family&#39;s farm near Perry in north-central Oklahoma.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>After one of the driest periods on record, <a title=\"NewsOKlink\" href=\"http:\/\/newsok.com\/article\/5466652\" target=\"_blank\">2015 was the wettest year ever in Oklahoma<\/a>, and the rain still hasn\u2019t let up. But scientists say climate conditions are aligning in a way that could bring drought back to the state.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/267113427&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=false\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Out of drought<\/h3><p>Mason Bolay doesn\u2019t have a lot of time to talk about whether he\u2019s prepared for the next drought. He needs to finish the daily work on his family\u2019s farm outside Perry in north-central Oklahoma before the next thunderstorm moves in.<\/p><p>\u201cIn agriculture we\u2019ve got to be prepared for anything and whatever Mother Nature sends our way,\u201d Bolay says. \u201cTo say if I\u2019m mentally prepared? I guess we could get there, but as far as commodities and inventory, yes, we will be prepared for that.\u201d<\/p><p>It\u2019s been a good year for Bolay\u2019s farm. There\u2019s been plenty of rain. But the drought took a toll from 2010 to 2015.<\/p><p>\u201cWe\u2019re still seeing some of those effects in some of our hay meadows and pastures where they were pushed a little too hard,\u201d Bolay says. \u201cThat native grass just doesn\u2019t recover quickly.\u201d<\/p><p>Farmers are limited in what they can do to get ready for future droughts that may or may not come.<\/p><p>\u201cThere\u2019s only so much hay storage that you can have. Hay\u2019s only going to be able to sit outside for so long. You can\u2019t hold grain and wait for a drought for whenever grains go back up,\u201d Bolay says. \u201cYou have to try to mitigate the situation as it comes.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Warning signs<\/h3><p>There\u2019s no way to be sure what the situation will be in the months and years ahead, <a title=\"WeatherLink\" href=\"https:\/\/weather.com\/news\/climate\/news\/la-nina-development-animation-pacific-water-temperatures\" target=\"_blank\">but some signs are giving us hints, and scientists are worried.<\/a><\/p><p>\u201cIt does certainly appear that La Ni\u00f1a is coming,\u201d State Climatologist Gary McManus says. \u201cAnd with that will be an increased chance of below normal precipitation and possibly above normal temperatures as we go through the next cool season.\u201d<\/p><p>La Ni\u00f1a is the opposite of El Ni\u00f1o. They\u2019re kind of the yin and yang of water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America. El Ni\u00f1o happens when the water\u2019s warm; it generally means wetter weather from fall to early spring in Oklahoma.<\/p><p>When the water cools we get La Ni\u00f1a and less precipitation. Oklahoma is currently coming out of one of the <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/08\/20\/godzilla-el-nino-has-oklahoma-farmers-excited-but-guarded\/\" target=\"_blank\">strongest El Ni\u00f1os ever<\/a>, and it helped end the crippling, five-year drought last year.<\/p><p>\u201c[El Ni\u00f1o] lasted throughout the summer, a little bit uncharacteristic of these phenomena,\u201d McManus says. \u201cAnd then it strengthened once again as we got into the fall and winter, and then it\u2019s declined rapidly until now it\u2019s basically faded away for the most part.\u201d<\/p><p>Scientists are confident La Ni\u00f1a is coming later this year, but they don\u2019t know how strong it will be, or how long it will last. And the El Ni\u00f1o-La Ni\u00f1a cycle is actually pretty small in scale compared to the larger oceanic temperature patterns that can affect Oklahoma\u2019s weather.<\/p>\n<h3>Larger forces at work<\/h3><p>There are two of these larger cycles: the <a title=\"NCSUlink\" href=\"http:\/\/climate.ncsu.edu\/climate\/patterns\/PDO.html\" target=\"_blank\">Pacific Decadal Oscillation<\/a> \u2014 or PDO \u2014 and the <a title=\"WikipediaLink\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation\" target=\"_blank\">Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation<\/a> \u2014 or AMO. Again, they refer to ocean water temperatures, but on a larger level than just the Pacific coast of South America.<\/p><p>\u201cThe Pacific Decadal Oscillation \u2014 PDO \u2014 is sort of the governing state of the Pacific that determines whether we\u2019re in an extended period of El Ni\u00f1os or La Ni\u00f1as,\u201d McManus says.<\/p><p>When the PDO is in its warm phase, we see lots of El Ni\u00f1os and more rain. When it\u2019s cool, more La Ni\u00f1as.<\/p><p>The Atlantic Oscillation is reversed. When it\u2019s cool, Oklahoma\u2019s wetter. When it\u2019s warm, we\u2019re drier. We can look at these cycles and get an idea about the weather in the future. Climatologists like McManus are concerned because the current situation looks pretty similar to six years ago, when the five-year drought began.<\/p><p>\u201cWhen we were in 2010 we were in the triple point of bad news because we were in the cool phase of the PDO, which of course helped produce that La Ni\u00f1a. So there\u2019s two bad things working against us,\u201d McManus says. \u201cAnd then the AMO was also in the warm phase, and in the warm phase of the AMO, that\u2019s when we see drier than normal weather.\u201d<\/p><p>McManus says the Pacific could be going back into a cool phase after the temporary warm up associated with the past year\u2019s strong El Ni\u00f1o. The Atlantic is still in a warm phase and a La Ni\u00f1a is expected, which we also had in 2010.<\/p><p>For now, though, it\u2019s still raining at Mason Bolay\u2019s farm.<\/p><p>\u201cWe\u2019ve always said nothing too good or too bad lasts too long,\u201d Bolay says.<\/p><p>And, for the time being, he\u2019s not sweating it. Nothing is certain when it comes to forecasting the weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s no way to be sure what the situation will be in the months and years ahead, but some signs are giving us hints, and scientists are worried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":26693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[313,423,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26682"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26703,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26682\/revisions\/26703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}