Possible wet winter in store for Washington

When Eric Snodgrass, an atmospheric scientist, spoke last week about the drought conditions in Washington that could soon change. He was speaking to an audience of farmers and ranchers.

“The entire state of Washington – you’re in drought. You’re in deficits, long-term deficits. We’re hoping for a winter that’s going to erase this,” Snodgrass said.

Snodgrass, who is a senior science fellow and atmospheric scientist at Nutrien Ag Solutions, was speaking to people attending Snohomish County’s Focus on Farming and Forestry Conference that took place Nov. 5 at the Evergreen State Fair Park in Monroe.

Thanks to mountain snow and valley rains, “I do think we’re going to be in pretty good shape,” Snodgrass said.

Conditions in Washington state range from parts of the state that are abnormally dry to other parts being in extreme drought, according to the United State Drought Monitor report that was released Nov. 6.

He said the region needs five big on-show flows, or atmospheric rivers, to resolve drought conditions. “It’s ignited storm systems by keeping big, high-pressure cells over Hawaii allowing these things to enter the Northwest.”

He added, “it’s not going to look like this week in and week out for the next three months, four months, five months. “It’s going to come in fits and starts.”

Jet streams originating from Africa, traveling over the Himalaya mountains and over the Pacific Ocean without deviation lead to the wettest winters, he said. November will start mild while December will be colder, which tends to lead to wet weather.

Audience members questioned whether the area was in an El Nino or a La Nina. Snodgrass answered the region is in La Nina. Another questioned about an increasing snowpack. Snodgrass said that while the snowpack is higher the melting times have changed. The snowpack currently melts between March through May while it used to melt May through July.

Through his work at Nutrien Ag Solutions, he develops predictive, analytical software solutions to manage weather risk for agriculture. He provides weather updates that focus on how weather events affect global agriculture, according to information from Snohomish County.

He also operates a website. www.ag-wx.com, that provides agriculture-related weather insights.

His thoughts about the winter weather came during a talk he gave about the weaponization of weather, which included historical information about attempts to manipulate weather and misinformation surrounding recent hurricanes.

“If you want to use weather properly, you have to start using it in a way where you can make good decisions off it,” Snodgrass said.

Focus on Farming conference

In its 20^th year, Snohomish County’s Focus on Farming and Forestry conference provided a day of talks, trade show, and a chef lunch featuring locally grown ingredients.

Breakout sessions throughout the one-day conference included talks about agritourism, livestock issues, organic farming requirements, selling at local food hubs, wholesale selling, flower farming, and social media management.