Weak signals make long term weather forecasting even more difficult

While weather prediction has improved, Mark Robinson said it’s still a lot of guesswork, especially for longer range predictions. Luke Edwards photo

By Luke Edwards

If failing seven out of 10 times is enough to punch a baseball player’s ticket to the hall of fame in Cooperstown, a mistaken weather forecast here or there can be forgiven.

Mark Robinson, a storm chaser with The Weather Network, was a guest speaker at the Grain Farmers of Ontario District 6 meeting last month in Caledonia. District 6 covers Haldimand, Brant, Hamilton and Niagara.

Joking that weather forecasting was one of the few professions where a person can be wrong seven times out of 10 and keep their job, Robinson attempted to give the farmers in the crowd an early look at the spring and summer forecast. It came, as expected, with a huge caveat: predicting the weather is really, really difficult.

“We can give you an overall look at it,” Robinson said. For anything further than a week out, general trends are about as good as one should expect. And even then there’s a large degree of variability.

It’s even more difficult this year due to a couple of reasons. The first is an uncertain El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) pattern. El Nino and La Nina have become well known phenomena that affect global weather patterns, including here in southern Ontario.

Robinson said it’s easier to make longer term predictions when either El Nino or La Nina is present.

“When we have good, strong signals, we have a better idea of what’s happening,” he said.

As the second half of January approached, La Nina was present, though with a likelihood of transitioning to an ENSO neutral pattern. That will make prediction more difficult, Robinson said.

The second reason is the ongoing impacts of climate change, which can still be a tricky topic to broach in some circles. Robinson takes an unexpected approach, saying he doesn’t believe in climate change. That might catch attention, but the phrase is actually a nod to a university professor who taught him it’s not his job to believe or not believe, but instead to accept the evidence.

And the evidence is pointing to several effects: more extreme swings in temperature and precipitation that can lead to flooding on one hand and droughts on the other. The famed Tornado Alley of the central United States is moving eastward. In fact, Robinson said southern Ontario is becoming a Tornado Alley of sorts, which is exciting for storm chasers like him, but troublesome for the millions of people who call southern Ontario home and rely on the land for their livelihoods.

Huge storms also pose risks for farmers. Some of the storms Robinson chases can now produce hail the size of softballs.

“We are going to see significant impacts,” he said, comparing climate change to a set of weighted dice. While we won’t roll snake eyes every time, with the weighted dice it’ll come up more and more often.

However, Robinson is far from a doomer. His excitement about all things weather is quickly evident as he presents, and while he acknowledges challenging times are likely ahead with a changing climate, there’s also opportunity.

“It’s really how we react to these changes,” he said.

Southern Ontario, in particular, could be an area of specific opportunity. Thanks in part to the Great Lakes, Robinson said this area likely won’t be as impacted by climate change as other parts of North America. This could lead to the region becoming even more vital for agriculture than it already is.

“That may increase the value of southern Ontario as an agricultural area,” he said.

It will require some planning, though. Farmers and governments are going to have to figure out how to store the season’s worth of rain that comes in a couple of days for the months and years when hardly a drop falls from the skies.

Simply protecting local farmland will also be important as climate change may potentially lead to climate migration.

From his experience, Robinson promoted a bottom up approach, where we listen to what the frontline people are experiencing and how they’re adapting, instead of having governments impose rules. His work travels have taken him to the far north where he talked to Inuit hunters who say their traditional hunting knowledge is no longer of use because freezing and thawing patterns are changing. Likewise, farmers on the Pacific island chain of Vanuatu are breeding salt resistant crops to adjust to a rising sea level that’s increasing the salinity in their ground water.

It’s those types of experiences he said we should be listening to as we figure out how to adjust to a changing climate.

As for his weather prediction for the coming months? The cold we experienced for much of January was likely to continue into February, leading to what he described as a sluggish spring.

One benefit of the cold winter is it could kill off more pests and invasive species than milder seasons of winters past. Pests like ticks may not be as abundant in 2026 following the harsh winter.

Cooler temperatures this spring may be accompanied by above average spring rain but fewer later spring storms.

However, once the cold breaks, it could do so in a hurry.

“We’ll likely see the warmth come up pretty quickly,” he said.

As for summer, his preliminary forecast is predicting a warm summer with average precipitation.

However, as he reminded the audience several times, predicting the weather - much like hitting a baseball - is a challenging business. 