Experts speak to dryness, atypical winter weather

It’s no secret, the weather in Hamilton County and much of the state of Nebraska in general has been abnormally dry. 
So dry, in fact, that local fire departments are issuing no-burn orders until a decent amount of moisture has returned to the soil. 
“We have been in a developing drought situation for the last six months or more across the area,” said Mike Moritz, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Hastings. “A large part of that was due to the fall and winter time weather pattern, which was influenced by a pattern that we call La Nina.”
A La Nina weather pattern is diagnosed by cooler than normal water temperature in the central Pacific Ocean near the equator, Moritz explained. This in turn affects weather patterns across the northern hemisphere.
“In short, in fall and winter when we have La Nina you tend to see wide swings in temperatures from warm to cold, a lot,” he said. “And then we tend to be drier than normal. We can be wetter, but we typically are normal or below normal precipitation.”
This is pretty much a textbook case, he agreed. 

To read more, please see this week's print or e-edition.