Mesonet Ticker for May 11, 2026

                
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May 11, 2026       May 11, 2026       May 11, 2026       May 11, 2026


It's a start?




I was thinking just yesterday about how I was thinking, and then I thought about
how I never really think much outside of that, so here I am back to not thinking.

And it shows.

However, if I WAS thinking, I'd be thinking about how May has been somewhat
tranquil as far as Mays go around here, aside from the bigtime hailstorms, which
are indeed far from tranquil. I don't know of any tornadoes being reported in
May thus far, and in reality there have only been two days with any severe weather
at all, back on Friday and Saturday.





And we don't have a lot of severe weather in store for this week, other than a
marginal risk of some wind and hail tomorrow up in NE OK, at least until we get
to Saturday.



And honestly (not like I've been lying up until now, I resent the accusation!),
that's not bad for May, which is "normally" ground zero for Oklahoma for EF2+
tornadoes.



Ugh, that bullseye right there in central OK...IYKYK, amirite??

And "normally," once we get to June the tornadoes die down pretty quickly as
the jet stream begins it's trek to the north and the upper flow weakens
considerably. At that point, we just get the bigtime rains, and also some
bigtime hail out in the High Plains.





Last year notwithstanding, of course, when June 2025 saw 39 mostly weak
tornadoes, easily a record for that month. But no biggies.

What's my point? Well, it's on top of my head, but other than a dunce cap, I'm
trying to say REALISTICALLY, we have just a few more weeks to go to get out of
our "normal" risky tornado, uhhhhhh, risk. Of course we get tornadoes all times
of the year. But come on, May is May and June is, well, June.

And besides, if we take a look at that top rainfall map again, it's pretty
obvious that our real risk right now is drought. We did get some good rains
here and there, and also there but not over here nor there. I'd call it a
start, though. A look at the spring maps shows we're still woefully behind
in those hardest-hit drought areas.





Meaning drought will go on (worse Celine Dion song EVER, and Jack could have
fit on that door with Rose, dang it!) for another week, although with a few
tweaks here and there.



And now we're looking at a mostly dry week with the heat ramping up.







Heat is better than tornadoes, but we can't avoid them forever.

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

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