Missouri weather as unpredictable as ever

The Show Me State's reputation for unpredictability will hold up this spring, according to officials at the University of Missouri's Climate Prediction Center.

The outlook from the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center is for drier weather northeast of Missouri and wetter conditions to the southwest.

"That puts Missouri in a corridor of essentially equal chances of above-, below- and near-normal precipitation," said University of Missouri Extension climatologist Pat Guinan. "Spring temperatures may be mild in parts of the state. There are indications for an enhanced likelihood of above-normal temperatures across much of the northern U.S. and that actually dips down into northern Missouri."

As for central and southern parts of the state, forecasters are indicating equal chances of above-normal, below-normal and normal temperatures.

So far, the mild weather is visiting much of Missouri, but since it's only March, Guinan said that could be a problem.

"Rising soil temperatures are coaxing plants out of dormancy, but a damaging hard freeze is still possible and that's happened before," he said. "Back in 2007, we had a very mild three-week period in March, and vegetation was well ahead of where it should be. Then we had an Arctic blast in the first week of April and that led to some significant damage to various crops and other vegetation around the state."

The median frost-free date is around the second or third week of April for the Ozarks and mid- and northern Missouri. For far southeastern Missouri, the median frost-free date is the end of March through the first week of April. A guide to frost/freeze probabilities in Missouri is available at ipm.missouri.edu/frostfreezeguide.

Even though we may not know exactly what to expect this spring, Guinan pointed out that Missouri did set records for the 2015-16 winter.

"The preliminary numbers do indicate this winter will definitely rank in the top 10 warmest winters on record, and we have records that go back over 120 years," he said.

Though December saw historic flooding across Missouri and was the second-wettest December on record, Guinan added this year saw the driest January-February period since 1983.

"I think it will rank as the sixth-driest combined January-February on record," he said.