Fur-lined boots, galoshes or flip-flops?
The unpredictable weather of recent weeks has left students puzzled and unsure of climate-appropriate garb.
“It’s really hard to decide what to wear,” said biological sciences freshman Kari Estep. “One day there’s rain, then no rain the next. It’s hot, then cold again.”
Barry Keim, geography and anthropology professor, said the most significant cause of this winter’s eccentric weather is the fact that the nation is currently experiencing the effects of La Niña.
In La Niña, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean run colder than normal, disrupting the atmosphere’s general circulation, Keim said.
La Niña tends to make winters warmer and drier. The country has been in a La Niña state since October of 2010, Keim said, and Louisiana was already suffering a drought before it began.
Keim said the cold air fronts of winter typically originate in Canada, but this winter, almost every front to touch Louisiana was born on the Pacific coast.
“The circulation this year is wildly different from what it typically is,” Keim said.
The groundhog Punxsutawney Phil may have seen his shadow this year, indicating six more weeks of winter, but Keim is skeptical of the groundhog’s prediction.
Even though Louisiana has a history of low temperatures during February, Keim said he doesn’t think southern Louisiana will see much more cold weather.
“I’m not saying winter’s over, but as long as we’re in the La Niña pattern, it seems more likely than not that we will remain in a warm and dry pattern,” he said.
Even though there has been moderate rainfall in the past two weeks, the state continues to experience drought.
John Saichuk, AgCenter professor and rice specialist, said Louisiana’s rice has been affected by this year’s heat and water shortage.
Saichuk said the water
shortage is the chief concern for farmers because they usually pump from surface water, which has been in short supply because of the drought.
The shortage of fresh water also leads to a migration of salt water, which is unusable for planting, Saichuk said.
“We need at least another 10 to 12 inches of rain to get us back into good shape,” he said.
The heat affects plant reproduction, and there aren’t any heat-resistant rice varieties, Saichuk said. Some farmers were forced to abandon their fields over the summer because of the immense heat and dryness.
But there may be a silver
lining.
Louisiana’s summer heat is particularly devastating to farmers, and the only option left is to plant earlier than normal, Saichuk said.
And this mild winter opens the possibility for an earlier plant.
Kenneth Gravois, AgCenter sugarcane specialist, said this warm, dry winter is beneficial to the crop.
“A dry winter never killed a sugarcane crop,” Gravois said.
He said the opposite — cold, wet conditions — would be stressful to sugarcane.
Though sugarcane is resilient, Gravois said the drought is still harmful to the crop. He said the tropical storm during last Labor Day weekend was a blessing in disguise for sugarcane.
Keim said the outlook for February, March and April predicts warmer-than-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation.
This year’s weather is similar to last year’s, which eventually led to the flooding of the
Mississippi River, Keim said. The same pattern persists, but he said he finds the event unlikely to recur because the North experienced less snow this year.
“The potential is there,” Keim said. “It’s hard to imagine that it’ll be as bad as it was last year.”
 
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Contact Emily Herrington at [email protected]