Mesonet Ticker for June 30, 2025

                
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June 30, 2025      June 30, 2025      June 30, 2025      June 30, 2025


Failure


Well, I had a nice Ticker (hey, YOU be nice) all typed out and it got obliterated
in a blue screen of death, so I'll give you the short version instead.



I've told you before how watching all those reruns of 1960s/1970s TV shows
as a kid warped my brain (BE NICE!). It's tough realizing that what you saw
on those shows was nowhere close to reality. Such as:

* You don't turn on the radio just in time for the announcer to say "AND NOW
FOR AN IMPORTANT NEWS FLASH!" (Gilligan's Island).

* You don't find evil Tiki idols (are there any other kind) laying around the
beaches of Hawaii (The Brady Bunch).

* I thought there'd be more quicksand. Didn't you think there'd be more
quicksand? Okay, we all thought there'd be more quicksand (Get Smart, Gilligan's
Island, Batman, etc.).

* If you traveled into the Bermuda Triangle, you were toast (The Bionic Man).

Okay, perfect segue attempt! There's a large plume of Saharan dust that has
erupted across the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa, which traveled west
on the prevailing winds across the ocean, into the Caribbean (across the Bermuda
Triangle), into the Gulf, and up into our area.

Here's a bit more from our friends at the Shreveport NWS office.



Actually, here's an actual picture of the actual dust coming off the actual west
coast of Africa.



This dust has it's good side and bad side. A Gollum-esque dust cloud, I guess.
The good:

* It can help limit tropical storm development, which is good.
* It can give us vibrant sunsets and sunrises, which is also good.

The bad:

* It can create those milky white, hazy afternoon skies, which is bad in a kind
of gross way. Gross!
* It can impact air quality, which can worsen conditions for those with
breathing difficulties, and allergies. That's bad.

Don't go all haboob, though. This happens every year, and in fact it happened
earlier this month already. You probably didn't know because it was raining
so much.

Heck, it's raining right now, for crying out loud!



Those storms are going up ahead of a cold front draped across the state, which
might give us a bit of severe wind and hail later this afternoon into early
evening.



That cold front will also give us a wonderfully mild day tomorrow, missing any
nasty heat index madness.



Some lucky folks will get rain, some heavy. Just don't try and walk across any
sand after it rains because...well, you know.



Gary McManus
State Climatologist
Oklahoma Mesonet
Oklahoma Climate Survey
gmcmanus@ou.edu
                

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