Published on: Thursday, February 02, 2012

By Dana Amihere

The unseasonably warm winter has cooled winter businesses’ bottomline, but it has also resulted in a milder flu season compared to recent years.

After an epic 2009-2010 winter season, a couple of inches of powder in a rare October storm seems like a letdown for snow lovers. The year 2011 won’t only go on record as the warmest year for La Niña weather patterns — the El Niño counterpart which lowers the sea’s surface temperature — but also the wettest, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.

“The fraction of the contiguous (United States) covered by extremely wet conditions (top 10 percent historically) was 33 percent during 2011, ranking as the second highest such coverage in the past 100 years,” said Jeff Masters with the Weather Underground online weather service.

This has put a damper on some local businesses.

Tom Hendrix, general manager of The Gardens Ice House ice rink in Laurel, says the disappearance of winter weather has taken a toll on his energy bill.

Colder temperatures help naturally maintain the facility’s temperature and the quality of the ice, said Hendrix, but this year’s warmer weather has upped energy consumption.

“We’re talking about a 35-percent increase versus this time last year,” Hendrix said.

While participation in programs such as ice hockey and skating has remained stable, bouts of warmer temperatures has decreased the number of customers by about 10 percent, especially for weekend open skating sessions, Hendrix estimated.

“When you have nice weather, people don’t come to an ice rink,” Hendrix said. “We’d like it to be cold, but it is what is and we’ll adjust accordingly.”

REI College Park manager Mike Gaurio reported a similar decline in the demand for cold weather gear this season.

“We probably have more gloves and hats and snow boots than after Snowmageddon. Slower sales seems to be specific to those winter-related areas,” Gaurio said.

Gaurio reported that a more affable climate, however, has allowed the store to run season-specific workshops later than usual, such as an outdoor biking class held in January.

“If we have a snowstorm tomorrow, people would be grabbing them (winter items) up in handfuls,” Gaurio said. “We’re in the business of getting people out to recreate, the weather has just changed what they do when they’re outside.”

Winter’s absence, though, has seemed to have kept more people out and about and out of their doctor’s office so far this flu season.

The Centers for Disease Control has reported only 1.4 percent of total outpatient visits for flu-like illness in the week ending Jan. 2 — well below the regional baseline of 2.5 percent.

While the flu virus can be unpredictable, a wet winter, a virus resembling the H3N2 and H1N1 of recent years and better vaccination rates could likely make for an uneventful flu season, said Dr. Donald Milton, director of the new Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health at University of Maryland, College Park.

According to Milton, whose current research on airborne biological agents is funded by the CDC and National Institutes of Health, the fact that many people may be immune to this year’s virus may be bolstered by favorable climate conditions.

A study by infectious disease expert Jeffrey Shaman at Columbia University concluded that the last four epidemic flu outbreaks — 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2009 — occurred after periods when weather has been very dry. Thus, La Niña’ oceanic cooling and ensuing precipitation may be taming the flu bug.

Climate change’s effects on migratory birds may also be lending a helping hand, but their behavior may be the quintessential canary in the coal mine, the World Wildlife Federation warned. Birds, which can act as a reservoir for flu viruses, haven’t been flying as far south as usual, including those who annually nest in the Northeast United States. Contact with the human flu virus resulting in drastic mutations and drug-resistance just hasn’t been seen so far this year. 

Regardless, health officials like Milton promote healthy habits, such as covering your cough, hand washing and vaccination as the most proactive lines of defense.

While businesses may see sales activity return to normal over the next few months, La Niña’s climate changing effects may be here to stay for the long haul.

In a press release earlier this month, NASA said it will continue to monitor whether La Niña has reached its peak or will strengthen but noted, “A repeat of La Niña ocean conditions from one year to the next is not uncommon.”