Extremes in weather more likely

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Wet springs. Hot summers. Weird windstorms. Heavy snows.

Weather experts and climatologists say people nationwide should not be surprised by more-extreme weather and warmer weather.

In central Ohio, climate-change models show that strong spring storms and hotter, dry summers will be the norm, said Jeff Rogers, state climatologist and a professor of geography and atmospheric sciences at Ohio State University.

“With climate change, there is going to be losers, and there is going to be winners,” Rogers said. “Currently, Ohio is a winner in that we’re still getting years like 2011.”

That was one wet year. Fed by water that evaporated from Southern and Southwestern states, most of Ohio experienced its wettest year on record in 2011.

That year, strong spring storms helped drop an average 55.88 inches of rain statewide, 17.88 more than average.

In 2012, Columbus had 22 days when the temperature reached 90 degrees. That made it the hottest year on record. The state also experienced a drought, but not as bad as that in the Great Plains states.

Although many scientists speculated that the 2012 drought was tied to climate change, a recent study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that it was not. The study found, among other things, that low-pressure systems that typically bring rain instead shunted toward Canada.

“This was not a case where there was something recursive and constant beating on the weather pattern,” said Martin P. Hoerling, a NOAA meteorologist and the study’s lead author.

“It’s things that we’ve seen in past droughts over the region, but they came together with great speed and severity.”

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/04/18/extremes-in-weather-more-likely.html