What does that indicate for any chances of recovery?

That's not great news for drought recovery, is it? One of the things that usually happens when we have a strong El Nino is we have a warmer winter than usual with less snowfall, as well as less snow cover.

Uh, we've just done an analysis in the state climatology office and found that all...

if you average all of the strong El Ninos since 1950, that statewide we typically receive a foot less winter snowfall, which is about a third less than normal, and that means that there's less snowpack to replenish the soil moisture come spring.

Now, El Nino's not the only player.

Uh, it's possible some other factors may mitigate that and maybe we won't have as warm or as dry a winter as we expect, but that is a concern.

So if you're planning, if you're a farmer and you're anticipating into the spring what's likely to happen, that is something to take note of and, and maybe start planning for.

What kind of patterns are you noticing over decades?

I mean, if you could leave anybody, I guess, with a message about your work or why studying all this is important, what would you say?

There's so much we can do to prepare for the changes in climate.

One of the silver linings, I would say, of the extreme weather and changes we've had lately is that they've provided us with stress tests.

In many cases, we understand now where we're vulnerable.

For instance, did a dam fail? Did a certain piece of infrastructure not make it? Were there, unfortunately, too many heat-related deaths or trips to the emergency room? So those are all indications that we've got a problem and we know where those problems are and we can try to address those.

In the case of extreme heat, this is one of those cases where there's a lot of things we can do.

We've learned from communities across the country and around the world of what works and what doesn't work.

Do you get a lot of farmers or folks in the agricultural industry kind of asking about how do we prepare for this?

And are there any other solutions that you're really excited about that's happening here in the state of Wisconsin?

For about 20 years, the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts, or WICCI, has been exploring and trying to find the best solutions and strategies for Wisconsin to cope with the changing climate and its impacts.

This is a long-term partnership between the DNR and the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

I'm one of the co-directors of WICCI and we're excited because our latest assessment report was just published earlier this year.

So people can go to our website and get a fairly quick rundown of suggested adaptation measures from our 14 and now 15 different working groups.

So there are things like how can we manage stormwater better in the changing climate as we get heavier rainfalls? What are some strategies to stabilize shorelines as we get reduced ice cover in the winter that promote bigger waves? How can we deal better in a public health sphere with the increasing amounts of wildfire smoke? Higher humidity and heat during the nighttime and so forth.

So this gives me hope.

And speaking about being prepared, what can we expect from this coming El Nino that's on the horizon? And remind folks, what is El Nino? So for a refresher.