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UNL climatologist says this spring’s weather is hard to predict

University of Nebraska state climatologist Al Dutcher says, by mid-January, he’s usually pretty confident in his spring weather forecast.  This year, not so much.

“This is probably going to be one of my toughest years for forecasting, simply because of all of the different dynamics at play here—and the potential for us to go in multiple directions,” Dutcher says.

And he says the 2020 growing season is even tougher to forecast.

“I could see at least 15 different scenarios that could play out during the growing season—some of them very positive and some of them very negative—and yet all of them are in play at this time.”

One thing he is sure of, Dutcher says, is that there’s plenty of soil moisture heading into spring in many parts of the country, which could cause planting delays again this year.

“The area of the eastern Dakotas and Minnesota into northern Iowa—and then of course, the secondary area over in the Eastern Corn Belt—have been incredibly wet this fall,” Dutcher says. “Unless that pattern changes, and we get a southeast drought building, they’re going to have some issues there.”

Dutcher says he is also keeping an eye on the dry conditions in the southern Plains and whether they will continue to spread northward into Nebraska.

We spoke with Dutcher at the Northeast Nebraska Farm Show in Norfolk.