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| . . . Day by Day . . . | . . . May 17 in Mesonet History* . . . | ||||||||||||
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[ Consecutive days with less than 0.25" rainfall ] [ Consecutive days with less than 0.10" rainfall ] |
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MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012 May 15, 2012 Whither rain?? Mother Nature is determined to make me look stupid, and I definitely don't need any help in that department. I've been bragging continuously how the spring rains will help keep our summer from going to the extreme side. Well, that was a good idea in principle, except there was no guarantee the rain would continue. Now that we are smack dab in the middle of Oklahoma's normal (HAHA!) rainy season, the spigots have suddenly turned off. And if we're not careful, we're going to end up with this May as one of our driest on record just in time for summer. Take a look at our rainfall so far this month. http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120515/may1-15-total.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120515/may1-15-pct.png Now all those zeroes in the first map across northern Oklahoma aren't all that unwelcome after the dosing of torrential rains they received in April. Remember, some of those towns (e.g., Blackwell, Ponca City) broke their all-time April rainfall records. For other parts of the state, however, the dry weather has continued on from April. http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120515/April1-May15-total.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120515/April1-May15-pct.png And remember (once again) that this dearth of moisture has come with unusual heat. Our March was easily the warmest on record, April the 10th warmest, and our year-to-date (January-April) and spring-to-date (March-April) periods have both shattered the record books. Upper-90s and 100s were common throughout the western half of the state in late April and the first week of May. That tends to speed up the impacts of going without rainfall, and can hasten those areas quickly back into drought. Where will May temperatures end up? It's going to end in the top half of the warmest for sure and will be moving up the rankings over the next week with more heat. It's currently about 4 degrees above normal for the first half of the month. -****- Max T Min T Avg T May 1-15 Avg (2012) 80.6F 58.5F 69.6F May 1-15 Normal 77.5F 53.5F 65.6F Departure 3.1F 5.0F 4.0F -***- I can say this with very little uncertainty, however ... both the January-May and March-May (spring) statewide average temperatures will shatter the previous record marks (both held by similar periods in 2006). If we keep May's statewide average for 2012 where it was today (69.6F), the records would look like this: January-May 2012 55.7F January-May 2006 55.1F March-May 2012 64.2F March-May 2006 62.9F The May temperature will obviously finish higher than that, so the writing's on the wall for May temperatures. May precipitation is more uncertain. The driest May on record dates back to 1988 with a statewide average of 1.3 inches. http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120515/may-precip-history.png The statewide average for May thus far stands at 0.87 inches with very little rainfall in sight until the weekend. And then we have another week to go to add to our rainfall totals, so odds don't favor us breaking that record, but we could definitely end up on the low side for the month. For kicks (come on, join me in climatological excitement!), notice how our May rainfall totals have been favoring the dry side over the last 20 years of so? Interesting! As mentioned throughout the last 365 days or so, burgeoning dry conditions are not the ideal state to have heading into summer. We're very quickly approaching the time of year when things like precipitation and soil moisture (or lack thereof on both accounts) have a significant impact on what type of summer heat we experience. No need to rehash last year's debacle by Mother Nature, but any slowdown in the rains can mean more heat. As shown in a Ticker gone by, temperatures for the summer months of June-August show a strong negative correlation with precipitation (i.e., it's hotter when it doesn't rain, it's milder when it does). This graph illustrates that. Each column is a month (January to the far left) and each bar is a section of the state. Bars below are a negative correlation, bars above are positive correlations. The correlations are clearly more significant during the summer months. http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120515/precip-temp-correlations.gif The correlations are not too strong for May, which is probably why we've had nice weather over the last week or so instead of baking. But during that June- August period, the power of the sun takes over and dry weather can quickly spell HEAT! Mother Nature has yet to write that story, however. Let's not panic until we see the whites of her eyes (or the reds on the map). Gary McManus Associate State Climatologist Oklahoma Climatological Survey (405) 325-2253 gmcmanus@mesonet.org
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