A massive warmup hit areas of the country this week, including parts of South Dakota that were buried in snow before temperatures started to climb. The state along with other parts of the country now face the potential for prolonged flooding. Forecasters are also watching for the potential of widespread frost and freeze next week that could damage crops that are planted further south, including winter wheat.
Drew Lerner of World Weather, Inc says a preliminary system of coolness will hit first, but he’s more concerned about the potential for wider spread frost and freeze later next week. Current models are conflicting on just how cold it will get, as well as how much of the U.S. will see the cold weather set in.
“It’s really up for debate,” says Lerner. “It’s still not set in stone. Models are not consistent with the cold. It’s definitely on the charts. Some days, we see it in two pieces, some days, we see it in one; sometimes it’s more broad-based than others. The reason why we [World Weather] feel confident that it is going to be there, though, is because this pattern has repeated about every 62 days.”
Lerner says a similar weather pattern hit in mid-October, mid-December and Mid-February. Each time, the pattern looked like an innocent cooler mass, but then as it got closer to time, it became much broader—and much colder.
“Now, don’t get ahead of me here. I’m not suggesting we’re going to see freezes in Louisiana,” says Lerner. “But we could see some significant coolness. I believe, though, the strongly negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) that we have right now is going to fight against the cold. So, we should limit it to the northern and central parts of the Midwest, is what I’m saying right now. And it’s not ready to be set in stone. But they may be down to northern Missouri and central Illinois, maybe even southern Indiana and southern Ohio.”
As the risk for a frost and freeze enter the picture, he says the worst-case scenario shows it’s even possible the bitter cold could extend into the Tennessee River Valley.
“So, we want to watch it pretty closely because we don’t have a good handle on how intense it is. And we do have a lot of wheat that’s moving along fairly quickly. We already had damaged corn in the lower Delta in February from the last time this pattern showed up. So, we could do more damage now because more of the crop is advanced, of course.”
Lerner says while the first hit of cooler weather will be short next week, it’s the second wave of colder weather he’s most concerned about.
“The one that comes later next week into the second weekend of the outlook will be the one that we want to watch most closely,” says Lerner.
