The thermometer may not reflect it right now, but winter started off as a record breaker in Illinois. According to Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel, December 2015 was the warmest on record since 1895. And the record wasn’t just broken, it was crushed. The average temperature in December was 40.6 degrees, 10.7 degrees above average. The spring-like weather in early December kept a lot of winter jackets in closets until Christmas.

And then the rain started, which led to another record breaker.

STANDING WATER: Soggy fields in December became a common site in warmest month on record.

December 2015 was the second wettest on record in Illinois. The Christmas rain event, dumping 10 to 13 inches of rain in some areas of Illinois, was key in the overall precipitation level. Angel said December precipitation was average up to that point. “The storm made all the difference on the rainfall.”

 The record-breaking weather wasn’t isolated in Illinois either.

According to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), 2015 was the second warmest and third wettest in the United States. 

“The surprise for me was how uniform both the temperature and precipitation patterns were. A lot of times, in the United States, the west coast can be pretty hot and dry and the east coast has been cold and wet, and so you get these big differences. But, in this case, in 2015, it was uniformly warmer than average and pretty much uniformly wetter than average, with the exception of California and Montana.”

Hows and whys

So, what about the elephant in the room? Is it climate change? Is it El Nino? Where is the warm and wet weather coming from?

“We kind of knew this was coming. We knew there was this trend towards warming the last couple of decades. Plus we knew there was a strong El Nino out in the Pacific Ocean, and that really warms up the Pacific Ocean. So we knew those two things together were going to give us a pretty warm year.”

 “If you look at global records, there’s certainly a trend in the last 30 to 40 years of warming. And it’s been fairly consistent. It’s a fairly steady upward march.”

However, that doesn’t mean you won’t have an outlier here and there.

Angel noted that in Illinois, the weather “can be doing things different, or even in some cases, the opposite of what the global trends are.” For instance, in 2014, Illinois may have been one of the coldest spots in the world. But in 2015, Illinois was consistent with the rest of the U.S.

Where does that leave us today?

In the short term, Angel said forecasters expect El Nino to follow a typical life cycle and fade in late spring, or early May. “The big question is, will anything take its place? Or, will we move into a La Nina situation?”

Angel explains that moving from an El Nino to a La Nina could mean a hot and dry year for Illinois. Unfortunately, we won’t know what will follow until we get closer to spring.

A hot and dry forecast may sound alarming. And farmers shouldn’t rule out drought conditions in 2016. Still, Angel isn’t too concerned about a potential hot and dry forecast.

“Our soil is recharged at this point. And, even if we run on the dry side this summer, we’re not set up for a major catastrophe.”