Spring Weather Outlook Pt 2
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. The weather, good or bad, is something growers everywhere have to deal with every year. Weather forecasters, try as they might, aren't always perfect when trying to give us a heads up.
State Climatologist Nick Bond says with our water situation is looking pretty good for growers, it's hard to say how that plays into things like wildfire season ...
BOND ... "You mentioned wildfires. That's exactly one of the things I'm getting more and more interested in is whether we can anticipate the kind of weather that promotes lightning strikes and more of the kind of dry thunder storms that initiate so many of the fires in Eastern Washington, Idaho, Western Montana and so forth, we can't really say much about that, but I'll certainly be keeping an eye on it."
Bond says the more we know, the better prepared we can be ...
BOND ... "Yeah, exactly! You know, there's growing awareness that we have to do something about this problem because summer's like 2017, we don't want any, any more of that sort of nonsense."
Bond says weather scientists are trying to be better predictors ...
BOND ... "One of the big interests in the climate community is to try and do better in kind of more specific forecasts on time scales of less than a season, like a month out to a season or two. And, so that's kind of a special focus of the community and, no promises that we're going to revolutionize that business, but we're trying."
Bond says currently, the Washington Cascades and northeastern Washington is in pretty good shape with snowpack, with most areas at or near 100% with more locations a little above than a little below.
