WHEELING - Although Punxsutawney Phil is forecasting six more weeks of winter, the season has been an unusually mild one so far.
But does this mean anything different for the Upper Ohio Valley in the coming months? Not necessarily, said an expert with the National Weather Service.
Lee Hendricks, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service out of Pittsburgh, said the Ohio Valley is currently experiencing a "La Nina" cycle, which for the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes region means a delayed onset of the seasons as well as above-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation.
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Doug Csongei plays at Big Met golf course in Fairview Park, Ohio, as temperatures rose into the 60s Tuesday.
"Generally, it's preferred to have a regular snow season in our area for keeping the reservoirs full in the wintertime and come spring, as well as for keeping the ground moist for crops in the spring, said Hendricks. "But with the above-normal precipitation we've been receiving, it has somewhat mitigated that issue at this point."
He said having a snow pack here in the East is not as critical as it is in the mountain regions of the West.
"If we had an above-normal temperature profile for our winter and a below-normal precipitation, then that would cause more problems for us than the situation we're in at this time," he said.
Hendricks said the National Weather Service predicts the above-normal temperatures and precipitation trend will continue through early spring.
"Even within those averages there can be deviations of minor cold outbreak as well as a major snow event like we had in March of '93 with the East Coast storm," Hendricks added.
West Virginia University Ohio County Extension Agent John Miller agreed that above-normal temperatures don't really mean much, as long as there is enough rain and moisture in the area. Miller pointed out that while the local area experienced some unusually warm days in January, the overall average temperature this winter has only been 5.6 degrees above normal. Miller said what's important isn't so much how warm it gets during the day, but how cold it gets at night.
"The average minimum low was 24.3. It should have been 21.1. ... So for the low, we were only 3 degrees warmer than we should have been ... which for plants and stuff that's what's important," Miller said.
"It's been warm, but this is what we call an open winter on the farm ... because we don't have snow cover, we don't have frozen ground, we're getting stuff done," said Miller, who is a farmer himself. He said many area farmers will take advantage of the warmer weather to perform outdoor tasks like building fences.
"We work on our fences, we clean up where our trees have fallen down, people are getting things done outside," he added, pointing out it's much harder to drive fence posts when the ground is frozen.