Dry start to Utah winter may bug you later

The Indian summer Top of Utah residents have been enjoying the last few weeks may have been refreshing, but it also may have some downright buggy consequences come spring.

That's right. According to bug experts, without some significant snowfall soon, the result could be an infestation of bugs normally killed off by cold winter temperatures.

"Cold weather is one of the things that seem to knock them back," said John Mull, a Weber State University zoology professor who's an expert on insects. "If we start spring with higher numbers, they could build up to unprecedented levels."

Mull cited current issues with bark beetles consuming large numbers of trees throughout the western United States as an example of what could happen when pest insect populations explode.

"Insect pests that normally get killed off could be around in large numbers," said Barb Wachocki, chairwoman of the botany department at Weber State University. "Something like that could happen. ... It could have a huge impact on plants."

Because of plant hormones and other factors, Wachocki said she is far less worried about the direct effect on plants from unseasonably warm weather than she is about the insects.

But Mull said the warm weather pattern also could have a devastating effect on some six- and eight-legged creatures.

"If it's not cold, they are moving around," he said. "They are burning up calories but not replacing them. ... It messes up their physiology in a way that they may not be able to recover."

A host of warm-temperature records have been set last week in various locations throughout the state, and the usual air inversion for this time of year also appears to be all but nonexistent.

The cause, say weather experts, is a lack of snow so far this season combined with a high-pressure system.

Marty Booth, a meteor-ologist with the Utah Climate Center, said last week's particularly warm weather with a handful of high-temperature records has been due to "large-scale high-pressure ridges that have been over the West."

The ridges have kept storms away from Utah, Nevada and much of Colorado, he said.

But what's most important to understand, he said, is that the temperatures have stayed warm because of a lack of snow.

According to the National Weather Service, a record low amount of snowfall was set last month at the Salt Lake City International Airport. Record-keepers recorded just one-tenth of an inch of snowfall, breaking the old record of nine-tenths of an inch in 1962.

"Normally, we already have a good deal of snow cover on the ground," Booth said. "Snow cover tends to reflect solar radiation away and we get even colder."

He said darker colors in bare soil absorb solar energy and heat the air next to the ground, keeping ground-level air temperatures high and the usual January inversion at bay.

Dan Bedford, a Weber State University geography professor who has studied long-term climate change, pointed to a La Nina pattern over the equatorial Pacific Ocean as the cause of recent trends.

"We just have to blame it on high pressure," said Rick Ford, a professor in the geosciences department at Weber State University. "We just need the high-pressure cell to blow away. It has happened before. It will happen again. It's part of the variability in this thing we call weather."

And weather variables also could serve as a protection, Wachocki said.

"I've heard some people say the tulips are coming up," she said. "If the soil is warm, they may be fooled into coming up early. ... If we do get some snow, it is a good insulator."

Weather and climate experts who were interviewed all said a few weeks of unseasonably warm weather are not indications of global warming and shouldn't be cause for concern by itself.

"One year is not going to have a profound effect," Wachocki said.

"It is weather," Ford said. "In weather, it's going to change."

He urges people to wait before they get worked up over a lack of snowfall.

"We are behind, but with any luck, we will catch up later in the season," Ford said. "Dry years and drought are common."

But Wachocki and others did say they have seen other indications that the planet is getting warmer.

"It is happening in a lot of places where the flowers start to come up and bloom earlier," Wachocki said. "If the pollinators are not out, it could have an effect on seed production."

Bedford said weather patterns are something that must be studied over a long period of time. He said last winter sported a warmer period at about this same time as well, which was followed by a record-breaking wet spring.

But he said, over time, there does seem to be a "little bit of a trend toward slightly warm winters in the western United States."