MILD WEATHER PAMPERS REGION

The calendar says it's winter, but lately the weather has the look of spring.

In fact, it has been downright mild, weather observers say.

So mild, that golfers have flocked to area courses, rose bushes and some other plants are showing new growth, and city snow plows have been all but forgotten.

"We are tickled with this weather," a city public works officer said. "We couldn't be happier with it."

Kevin McMeel, the city's assistant public works director, said street crews only had to tackle one major storm last month.

The city used 702 tons of sand, 705 gallons of a de-icer chemical and 50 tons of salt on city streets because of a Jan. 6 ice storm.

The average temperature in Cape Girardeau in January is 33.1 degrees. But this year, the average temperature was 35.6 degrees.

To the general public, the difference seems small. But to climatologists the difference is substantial.

"Basically, the jet stream is farther north than it normally is and therefore it is not allowing a lot of that cold outbreak to come into this location," Southeast Missouri State University climatologist Al Robertson said Thursday.

Robertson said the jet stream has split into two sections: one to the north of Cape Girardeau and one to the south."

Even so, the mild weather hasn't set any records locally.

The lowest temperature so far this winter was 7 degrees Jan. 5.

In mid-January, the weather was balmy, with a high temperature of 68 degrees Jan. 11, followed by 67-degree days Jan. 12 and 13.

The first two days of February also were mild, with a high of 57 degrees both Wednesday and Thursday.

Typically, Cape Girardeau gets most of its snow in January and February. But, there has been only little snow this winter.

"I think we got about half an inch of snow all of last month when we should have had 4 1/2 inches," Robertson said.

Area golf courses have been busy because of the mild weather.

On Wednesday, 129 people played the Bent Creek Golf Club course at Jackson. A year ago on Feb. 1, only two people braved freezing temperatures to play golf there.

"The whole winter, we have been busy here," pro shop manager Mary Jane Sauer said.

The Cape Girardeau Country Club has been getting 40 to 50 golfers a day.

"It is bringing them out of the living rooms, that's for sure," Country Club assistant pro Gary Squires said.

Charles Korns, horticulture professor at Southeast, said some bulbs like tulips and daffodils are starting to push through the ground.

Blooms are beginning to appear on forsythia and other shrubs.

"I have even seen some roses next to a house where the new growth has started coming out," Korns said.

If the area gets hit with a cold spell in the next week or so, it won't cause any major damage to the plants, Korns said, but it would be better to get a cold spell now than in late February when everything is budding.

Even with the mild weather, Robertson said it is too early to count winter out.

There is a chance of snow in parts of Missouri today. Spring won't officially arrive for another month and a half.

"We are not out of the woods by a long shot," he said.