Lately there has been a proliferation of news regarding El Nino and, although weather predictions have been notoriously erratic, we in Saskatchewan should keep an ear on this news. El Nino is the name for the event resulting in a major warming of the ocean waters in the eastern and central tropical regions of the Pacific ocean. This disruption of the ocean and atmospheric systems in the tropical Pacific region has important consequences for weather around the globe.
El Nino has affected us here in Saskatchewan before. The most significant El Nino in our memory was in 1982-83 when our winter climate was significantly altered. I can't remember using my snowmobile for a few years in the eighties so I guess El Nino was to blame. As far as this latest El Nino is concerned, all predictions lead us to believe this El Nino will be the most significant event since 82-83. Since March of 1997 a major warming of the El Nino area has occurred in a similar pattern to 82-83. Other temperature readings taken from this area during August and September of 1997 indicate the largest temperatures in fifty years. Wind patterns in the areas are also unprecedented in thirty years. The consensus among the climate experts (sometimes I think flipping a coin is as accurate as a weather expert's opinion but that's my own opinion) is that the current warm episode condition will continue until the March - May 1998 period.
So what is the impact of the current El Nino and what, you ask, does this mean for us here in Saskatchewan? For the rest of the world there could be some significant weather problems. It will likely be a lot drier in places like; Indonesia, Eastern Australia, Central America, the Caribbean, South America and Southern Africa. Higher rainfall can be expected in the central and eastern Pacific regions and the extreme southern US. It is also predicted to be warmer than normal in the northern US regions from the Rockies east to the Great Lake region. It is in this area where we make the connection.
A warmer winter for Saskatchewan should not send everyone in the province into a state of depression. I can vividly remember getting up one dark morning in January for an 8:30 am novice hockey game, cringing as I read the -42 C temperature on our thermometer. I'm hoping this year we don't have to explain to that rink manager again why our space heater is a necessary piece of team equipment (we blew the breakers out for half the rink). Warmer than normal would be nice, however drier than normal would not be welcome in much of the province. I have never seen it so dry at this time of year. Many potholes are dry that have never been so before. The soil is particularly dry after a year where in Southeast Saskatchewan many farmers reported less than 3 inches of rain during the growing season and not much since. The risk of crop failure in much of southern Sask. due to lack of moisture is high right now.
One lesson learned during this past year that may help us plan for future dry conditions was how to manage soil moisture with reduced tillage. Many farmers who received lower than normal rainfall were still pulling off crops that were average or in some cases significantly above average. The common thread throughout these management systems is low disturbance seeding (LDS) techniques. Some of our members were reporting as much as a fifty percent difference between their LDS fields and those of their neighbors that were conventionally seeded. Clearly this system minimizes the risk of crop failure due to low seasonal rainfall. This being the case, farmers in Saskatchewan and other places where drought is a possibility should adopt LDS techniques as a tool for managing risk.
Who knows what El Nino will bring? Our weather and climate prediction models are still a long way away from being 100% accurate. We do know, however, that drought and low rainfall conditions have been and will be highly probable events in Saskatchewan. We also know that managing our land with LDS techniques is an effective method to address these conditions. When planning our future land management strategies we should keep these factors in mind.