Weather Wise

Weather and West Nile Virus

West Nile virus has killed nine Montanans and infected hundreds since it first appeared in 2002. Fluctuations in the disease may be attributed to variations in the weather.

This spring's rainy, cool pattern is bugging Montanans, literally.  Wet weather produces thick underbrush and leaves a lot of standing water... breeding grounds for mosquitoes.  The annoyinginsects can become deadly, as they are the primary species that transmits West Nile disease to humans.

Laurel Riek, Lewis & Clark County Health Department says “The first and easiest way to be infected by West Nile is to not have any symptoms and to gain immunity.  The second is to have a mild form of the disease in which you have ‘West NileFever’ and you have fever, body aches, vomiting, and nausea symptoms.  The third and worst one is the Neurological symptoms which can lead to death.”

In 2007, West Nile virus infected 202 Montanans and killed 5 people.  They were from cascade, Chouteau, Dawson, Sheridan and Yellowstone counties.  But the numbers sharply vary from year to year, with only 6 cases in 2004 and 26 and 34 cases in 2005 and 2006. What is common from year to year is when the cases begin to show up.

Riek said “The highest number of cases turn up in Montana in August and September.  It's at the end of the season when you have enough mosquitoes infected you have more of a chance to be bitten by an infected mosquito.”

To protect against mosquitoes, wear long sleeves, use insect repellents containing deet, and avoid the hours of peak mosquito activity between sunset and midnight…now you're a little more WEATHER WISE.

Sunspots?

A highly anticipated and expected storm on the surface of the sun is not happening.               

In this week's WEATHER WISE, the absence of sun spots will have repercussions here on earth.

The sun undergoes punctual 11 year cycles of varying solar activity and intensity.  Sun spots should be flaring at an increasing frequency toward the year 2012, the next solar maximum.  While periods of dormancy are common, this inactivity has gone longer than usual.

Dr. Kelly Cline, Astronomy PhD tells us, “Any affects on the Earth are probably longer time sorts of things.  If they were to go away for decades or centuries, that might have more of an affect.  And we don't know that either.”

The last time the sun went an extended period without sun spots was between the years 1650 and 1700. During that time, the sun produced no sun spots, coinciding with the little ice age on earth.  Like weather forecasting, solar physicists are using computer models, research, and the past to try and understand solar activity.

Dr. Kelly Cline, “Activity on the sun changes.  Sometimes there's more magnetic activity and sometimes there's less.  We can tell this by drilling ice core samples.  Radiation on the earth and the earth's atmosphere is often affected by solar activity. So we can study that.”

The absence of solar storms has an immediate affect on earth.  It’s good news for power grids, critical military, civilian and airline communications, GPS signals, cell phones and ATM transactions that are impacted by solar storms. However, sun spots also produce for one of nature's most beautiful natural phenomena, the northern lights.

Now you're a little more WEATHER WISE.

Fishing Season in high water

The wettest month of the year in Montana happens to be May... and this year proved no different. In this weeks WEATHER WISE, Beartooth NBC's Erin Yost tells us what the saturated conditions mean for this years fishing season.

a system at the end of may drenched central, north central and southwest Montana leaving anywhere from 2 to 5 inches into the valleys and plains - to upwards of 10 inches into higher elevations near half moon pass...leaving Montanans to deal with pesky flooding issues in low-lying areas and rivers and streams. And that has left some anglers wondering what impact the flooding may have on fishing this year.

Ron Aasheim, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Spokesman explains, "With all this runoff, there's a lot more erosion, a lot more sediment and there's a lot more food in the rivers and streams so fish aren't as hungry.  And they're tucked into places where they're not going to get swept away by the current or where they don't have to work as hard."

Aasheim says safety is the biggest concern with the rivers rapid movement right now.  Boats are susceptible to swept away logs or other debris that could affect boating and therefore, human safety. Other than that, the flooding is just basically making it harder to fish with the murky, speedy water.

He encourages people, "It's a time to be patient, wait it out a little bit, but if you want to go fishing, just find some back water, some slow eddies and dunk an worm or something."

Aasheim also says it's difficult to say what the recent flooding issues will mean to this summers fishing. "We can have these kinds of conditions now and if we don't continue to get rains, we can have fishing restrictions later in the year because of lack of water."