MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... June 24, 2011 June 24, 2011 June 24, 2011 June 24, 2011
OKC moving up in the record books
Oklahoma City (or as we say back in Buffalo ... "the City") reached 100 degrees today and for the sixth time this June. That now places June 2011 in a tie for fifth place with the most triple-digit June highs dating back to 1896. Here are your top 100-degree Junes on record for OKC:
1933 9 1911 7 1925 7 1953 7 2011 6 1918 6 1934 6
OKC needs three to tie and four to win with six chances left. Looks like it's gonna be close. A sure bet is the number of days at or above 90 degrees. The record for June in OKC is 27 from 1911 and the count is now 24. With the forecast looking hot for the next 6 days, OKC will break that record. If it doesn't, blame my colleague Dr. Mark Shafer who alerted me to the statistic. Here are your top Junes in OKC with days of 90 degrees or higher:
1911 27 1934 25 2011 24 1953 24 1990 24
Okay, it wouldn't be a Ticker if I didn't try and doom-and-gloom you, right? Remember 1980, of 50 days of above 100 degrees fame? It only had FIVE days of triple-digit heat during June and 14 days above 90. There's a lot of room left for this heat to grow.
Finally, the average temperature for the month thus far in OKC has been around 83.2 degrees. That ties it for third place as the warmest June on record in OKC with 1934. Tops is 1953 at 84.3 degrees with 1911 in second place at 84.1 degrees.
Your Mother said it and I'll say it again. Always wear clean underwear in case ... no, that was not it. Oh yeah, here it is: be careful of the company you keep!
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More on fire
Say that slowly, please. I really hate to be right about something, and as my wife will tell you, it very rarely occurs. But the fire currently raging out of control near Medicine Park will be more the norm without appreciable rainfall in the western half of the state. There's just no green down there and also no moisture. And that's not a local feature, we're talking about the whole southwestern corner of the United States eastwards to about Oklahoma City. This relative humidity map of the U.S. from the Oklahoma Mesonet website tells that story pretty well.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110624/US.relh.png
Keep in mind as you look at this that the same weather conditions that produced the large fires in Arizona have been occurring in western Oklahoma. It was just a matter of time before we saw similar results. The lack of green tells the rest of the story. Check out what a difference can make with the relative greenness map from last year at this time versus this year, courtesy of OK-FIRE (http://okfire.mesonet.org).
last year: http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110624/jun21-2010.gif this year: http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20110624/jun20-2011.gif
Last year's oranges and browns are what you could expect after wheat harvest with a bit of dry weather thrown in, but compared to this year's map, the difference is remarkable. Also notice that the greens in the eastern half of the state last year are much darker than this year. Southeastern Oklahoma in particular is primed for drought re-emergence due to lingering long-term dry conditions.
Gary McManus Associate State Climatologist Oklahoma Climatological Survey (405) 325-2253 gmcmanus@mesonet.org
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