GARNETT — It’s definitely winter this week. Although the Farmer’s Almanac and sunspot experts for NASA predict a lot more of this week’s arctic cold and wet weather through the rest of this winter, state climatologist Mary Knapp isn’t so sure. Knapp told the Anderson County Review that an El Nino winter is taking shape for Kansas. In Kansas, El Nino winters are warmer than normal because the jet stream is pushed further to the north keeping the ice-cold air in the northern Great Plains. She said the area could see more snow but winter temperatures should be more mild. NASA experts and the Almanac’s prognosticator offer dissenting advice and say weather patterns tend to follow sunspot patterns and the sun has seen an unusually long string of days without sunspots on the surface of the sun. The last time such a long period of spotless sun-days occurred was in the late 1600s, a time called the “Little Ice Age,” a period of the worst winters in recorded history. However, whoever you’d like to believe, the National Weather Service said you should be prepared for the occasional blast of severe winter weather – like this week.
