Erika Fox
Reporter
February 3, 2006
Milligan College experienced unusually warm weather this month, with highs reaching 66 degrees on Jan. 10. The weather affected students’ activities and mindsets throughout the month.
Sophomore Brad Barmore said the warm weather improved his overall mood. “I seem to have a better time when it’s nice outside,” he said.
Barmore and his friend Casey Williams played football on Pardee Lawn, both enjoying the sunny, 55-degree day. Many students played football and Frisbee on the lawn in the mild weather this month.
While the students enjoyed playing football outside, Williams still missed winter’s perks.
“I want some snow,” he said. “It’s not too late.”
Sophomore Piper Gullett also wished it would snow so that she could go snowboarding more often. While local ski resorts stayed open, Gullett said, “The conditions were awful and icy because they constantly had to make snow, and to top it off, many of the good slopes were shut down.”
Some students traded wintry clothes for warm weather apparel.
“Wearing flip-flops in January is a new experience for me,” said freshman Lauren Meyer, who lives in New York.
However, the warm weather in January did not stop Dr. John Simonsen’s skiing class from hitting the slopes at Wolf Laurel, N.C.
“Wolf Laurel has snow-making capabilities and the trails are generally shaded,” said Simonsen, associate professor of human performance and exercise science. “And of course, they’re at some altitude, so their temperatures are generally a little lower than our campus.”
The Tri-Cities area recorded its warmest January in 1950 when the average high for the month was 50.1 degrees. While January 2006 seemed warm, Shawn O’Neill of the National Weather Service in Morristown predicted that as this month ends, the average high temperature, in the 40s, would not replace the current record.
The National Climatic Data Center’s Web site suggested that weather phenomena El Nino and La Nina –referring to unusually cold and warm ocean temperatures- are responsible for this mild January. However, meteorologist O’Neill rejected the oceanic warming and cooling theories as the reason for the current weather.
“We are getting into the season where La Nina and El Nino are setting up but we won’t see manifestations of that until spring,” O’Neill said.
Rather, he said, the warm temperatures were caused by unusual pressure systems in the Western United States as well as fronts coming down from Canada.
As this January comes to a close, the temperatures will drop beginning Monday night. According to O’Neill, this current warm trend is ending, and February will bring colder temperatures, finally giving Milligan College a taste of winter.