According to the 2019 Old Farmer’s Almanac two of the snowiest periods of this winter have already passed.

Surprised?

So am I.

I find almanacs fascinating, but wouldn’t bet my bottom dollar on their predictions.

The snowiest periods of this winter were predicted to be mid- and late November and early and mid-December. Then supposedly we’re in for final snowy periods in early and late March.

Monday morning it was 44 degrees and raining. Jan. 7.

The winter of 2018-2019 is supposed to be influenced by El Nino, which means warmer temperatures and more precipitations due to warmer temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. 

Personally, I’m not one to beg for snow, so the rain can just keep on coming, as long as it doesn’t mess up next year’s field conditions for farmers. Agriculture counts for $2 billion in annual economic activity in Green County, according to the University of Wisconsin-Extension.

Josh Schenk is a fifth-generation dairy farmer, who farms outside of Monroe with his wife and her family. He’s a grain buyer. As a director for Green County’s Farm Bureau Federation he’s spoken to farmers about weather conditions this year. While it’s been a mild winter so far, the damp conditions can lead to problems.

“The way it looks now we could easily have a wet spring and some planting delays,” Schenk said. “That can all change, but it could impact the start of next year’s field work.”

Schenk said many farmers were happy to see last year’s harvest end, as it was extended by wet, muddy conditions.

Farmers tending to cattle and dairy cows have to deal with fluctuations in temperatures and damp conditions hard on the animals and that can lead to respiratory illnesses.

Farmers, who have bagged their feed on the ground, have to contend with mud when they use equipment to feed their cattle.

“I would say we’re pretty lucky with the mild winter so far,” Schenk said. “Maybe with the wet weather Mother Nature is helping us out when it comes to deciding what we should or should not plant in the spring.”

The National Weather Service prediction for the next 14 days shows no chance of snow greater than 30 percent on any day.

That long-term forecast calls for highs in the 20s Wednesday and Thursday, but then it warms up significantly to levels at freezing or in the 40s through Jan. 21.

When it comes to weather predictions, even with all the technology that’s been developed, significant accuracy can be limited from five-to-seven days.

Weather impacts few governmental departments more than the highway department, which in Green County maintains 122 miles of state highway and 279 miles of county highway. Green County Highway Commissioner Chris Narveson said Monday this winter has been “very unusual.”

“We’re having a little more icing this year than last year,” Narveson said. “I worry about icing and black ice. What happens is it warms up during the day or it rains and the temperatures are warm enough that any salt on the road is washed off. Then at night the moisture is spread across the road and there isn’t any salt.”

Narveson said he’s up at 2 a.m. checking weather conditions to see what maintenance is needed.

“From my perspective, I wish we had the snow and were dealing with that; nobody likes to deal with ice,” he said.

Narveson is cautious when it comes to talking about the weather. He said now we’ve discussed the topic we can probably look forward to “getting slammed” by a decent snowstorm in the near future.

As of right now in early 2019, mild conditions have given us rain, ice, warmer temperatures and little snow.

Unusual weather is a “new normal” in Green County as we’ve had three flood events in the past 18 months and unusually high rain counts for three straight years. Narveson said those rainy years were referred to as one “500-year-high” and two “100-year-highs” for precipitation.

“Maybe they should stop calling them that, because they’re happening frequently,” Narveson said.

Narveson said there’s a possibility that November will have been a colder month than January this winter.

Who would have seen that coming?

— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.