EAST PEORIA, Ill. — A lingering jet stream over the Ohio and Wabash river valleys could extend volatile weather conditions in the region, according to veteran central Illinois meteorologist Chuck Collins.

Collins gave his weather prediction for the upcoming growing season and thoughts on recent tornado activity that hit the Ohio River Valley and southern Illinois during the inaugural Illinois Central College (ICC) Crops Conference on March 5.

“From experience and common sense, I think we’ll have an active early part of the spring like last year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned off warm and dry in the second half like last year,” Collins opined. “We’ll have at least normal, if not a bit above normal, temps.”

Storms that descended on parts of southern Illinois and the Southeast in early March represented “the price we pay for a mild winter,” according to Collins, who broadcasts weather on local television channels WEEK 25 and WAOE 59. “We don’t have cold air in place, which should still be dominant this time of year.”

Collins said a blocking pattern in the form of a jet stream is dividing warm and cold air masses over the Ohio and Wabash river valleys.

“All winter long the jet has been split across the northern section of the country and to the south of us. That is where we are seeing the active storms, and just looking at things, it looks like that same pattern is going to hold for a lot of the spring,” he said.

“I think that (in central Illinois) we’ll have our share of severe weather, but I think the bigger outbreaks are going to stay to the south of us until that jet stream moves. We’ve been in a benign pattern all winter long, and we’re still there,” Collins said, adding the weatherman’s caveat, “but things could change.”

Collins began his presentation by comparing how farming and meteorology have evolved together over the years.

“I think we can agree that you probably don’t farm like your grandfather did, just as we don’t predict the weather as we did. You use some aspects of how your grandfather farmed, (such as) common sense and experience, but it is now a science,” said Collins, who holds membership in the American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Assoc., along with seals of approval from both organizations.

“But we all know that common sense and experience have to have a key role in cooperation with technology and science.”

Collins noted central Illinois farmers are no strangers to extreme weather conditions, as residents of a mid-latitude state located equidistantly from the North Pole and the equator. “Some of the most volatile weather in the world occurs here,” he stated, offering as an example the two inches of snow that fell on parts of central Illinois on March 4, followed with predicted temps in the low-60s for March 6.

On a bigger scale, Collins pointed to the record snowfall amounts recorded in central Illinois in the winter of 2010-11, compared with the near-lack of the white stuff this year as an example of the area’s weather mood swings.

“We’re on pace for the fifth-least amount of snowfall, and the sixth winter we haven’t reached zero degrees since weather records started being kept in 1883,” Collins said.

In addition to his personal weather prediction, Collins presented conflicting points of view from respected weather prognostication sources across the country. “There are disagreements on the overall spring and summer forecast,” he said.

“The Climate Prediction Center calls for higher-than-normal temperatures and precipitation throughout the remainder of March, while some commodities forecasters are saying we’ll have a drier, cooler summer, such as Farmer’s Almanac, Cliff Harris and a couple of other climatologists. But the National Weather Service is calling for pretty much normal (levels) on both temperature and precipitation.”

A “blocking” pattern has all but pushed the aggressive, wet La Nina pattern out of central Illinois, accounting for the mild winter here, according to Collins.

“We had been in a strong La Nina cycle the last couple of years. Last year was a true La Nina winter: very active, (followed by) an active spring that turned dry. We’ve had La Nina this winter as well, but it also resembles an El Nino winter, which is mild,” Collins explained.

“A couple of wild cards in the form of blocking patterns in the North Atlantic have turned a La Nina winter here into an El Nino winter. These blocking mechanisms are still in place. Until we get a handle on what they are going to do, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Collins took questions from farmers on topics such as global warming (“It’s real, but I prefer the term ‘global climate change’ to ‘warming,’” said Collins) and advances in weather prediction technology (next-generation radar will cut the time it takes to scan a region in half, improving public safety).

Approximately 100 people attended the presentation, one of six scheduled for the day at the ICC Performing Arts Center on the ICC campus.