COEUR d'ALENE - El Nino is officially dead, according to local climatologist Cliff Harris, and temperatures could rise into the low 60s by the weekend.

"We are in a pattern of extremes," Harris said. "I wouldn't be surprised to see afternoon temperatures in the low 60s - we are not breaking any records - but that's about 7 degrees above normal."

For the past few days we have been about 9 degrees below normal, and that is going swing to the other extreme.

"By this time next week, we should be seeing some rain and possibly snow out of the Gulf of Alaska," he said, adding that will start a new six-week cycle of wetter-than-normal weather.

A cold front will move into the region starting Wednesday and colder temperatures will follow that, he said. The cold wet weather should last through mid-to-late April.

"After that, I am taking off the snow tires," Harris said. "We should have some warmer-than-normal temperatures from mid-April through May."

Now that El Nino has passed, the region is faced with La Nada, which is the most difficult pattern to predict. Harris said he will explain that pattern in more detail in his Monday column in The Press.

Harris said June is likely to be wet as well, but afterward the summer cycle will kick in, which is likely to be hotter and drier than normal this year.

"So we need this rain right now," he said. "We've already had a brush fire in Hayden last month. That's Mother Nature sending us a message."

Harris said the unusually dry weather this winter was due in large part to a high-pressure system spanning the West Coast from Alaska to Mexico. That has held off much of the moisture the Pacific Northwest typically gets from the Gulf of Alaska.

"We had above-normal moisture in January with 21 inches of snow," he said, adding 32.5 inches of snow has fallen this winter. "You could say we had almost all of our winter in the month of January."

Since then, there hasn't been any measurable snow since Feb. 1, which is one of the longest periods this region has gone in the winter without any snow.

"Extremes, extremes, extremes," Harris said. "Nothing normal - we are going to be either too dry or too wet."