MILD WEATHER EXTENSION OF WARM WINTER

The recent mild weather is an extension of a winter season that averaged 4 degrees warmer than usual across the Midwest, but scientists warn against reading too much into the change.

"It's not a real exact science," said climatologist Beth Reinke of the Midwestern Climate Center in Champagne, Ill. "I would be very reticent to say it's getting warmer."

Two of the warmest winters this century were recorded in the past five years, raising the 30-year average temperature for the region, said Reinke.

It is likely some weather falls into patterns, but warm winters aren't unusual, she said.

Ted Schroeder, a meteorologist at the National Weather Center in St. Louis, said an abnormal jet stream is the cause of the temperate weather in Missouri.

"The jet stream has been in a different pattern this winter than usual, cutting off much of the country from the cold Arctic air that usually hits," Schroeder said.

He called the nice weather "one of those things," and said there is no correlation between weather one year and the next.

"It depends too much on the influence of other weather systems, cold fronts, warm fronts -- anything could alter any pattern that might start," he said.

As hard as it is to make sense of past weather patterns, predicting what the weather will do in the future is an even more inexact science.

Forecasters can only determine potential and likely weather patters for Southeast Missouri in the summer months.

Reinke said the U.S. Climate Prediction Center, responsible for long-term weather forecasts, reports that the Bootheel -- from Scott County south to the Arkansas border -- has a 33.3 percent chance of above-normal temperatures this summer.

The northern part of the zone, including Cape Girardeau County, has a one-third chance of normal summertime temperatures.

Of course that means both areas also have the same chance of below-normal summer temperatures. Missouri also has an equal chance of getting below normal, normal or above normal amounts of rainfall from June to September.

"Like I said, it's not a real exact science," Reinke said.