County Agent Update

Williams County Extension Service will be hosting an event titled; Behavioral Health 101 for Your Community. This event will cover topics such as mental illness, substance use and suicide prevention. The mental illness topic will include common psychiatric diagnoses, signs and symptoms, in children, adolescents and adults, including a discussion on autism. The substance use topic will have a discussion about addiction, common substances and effects of use. The suicide prevention topic will discuss how to become aware of warning signs and learn how to intervene. This program will be given over IVN, a system where we can participate in a meeting that is being held elsewhere in the state. NDSU Extension Service along with Prairie St. Johns will be putting on the educational event. This event will take place Wed., March 30 at 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. CT at the Williams County Extension Service office which is located at 302 E Broadway in Williston. We ask that you please pre-register so we know how many participates to gather the information for at 701-577-4595.

Winter 2015-2016 Summary

The North Dakota Climate Bulletin that is published by the North Dakota State Climate Office, just posted their Winter 2015-2016 Issue. This bulletin reviews what we have been seeing the past few months, and helps provide knowledge for what we might see in the future. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), climatological winter of 2015-2016 has a statewide average temperature of 20.5 degrees. That would rank this winter season tied for the 6th warmest in the past 121 years of recorded North Dakota weather history. It should be noted with the exception of 2011-2012, the other four warmest seasons in North Dakota were years with an El Niño present in the Pacific Ocean as was the case during this past winter as well. The three month statewide average rainfall according to NCEI was 1.22 inches. That is.2 inches below the 1981-2019 average of 1.42 inches. This past winter season would rank as the 50th driest since such records started to be calculated in 1895. NCEI stated that the 2015-2016 winter was perceived as a dry season but actually finished close to normal across much of the state.