Mesonet Ticker for March 26, 2026

                
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March 26, 2026     March 26, 2026     March 26, 2026     March 26, 2026


Surge-ical




I have good news and bad news. Bad news first: the losers finally shut off my
icloud account because my payment method expired. Now it says my files, photos,
and videos will be permanently deleted! Today, in fact, unless I take immediate
action!

So the good news is I immediately clicked the link that iCloud sent me, strangely
enough from an e-mail account of ANOTHER Gary McManus, and gave them my credit
card number, so disaster averted! Weird thing is I don't have an iCloud account,
but I'm glad I saved that one.

Some would call me foolish, but I call myself Gary.

Oh wait, more bad news...Oklahoma weather. No, nothing more needed, just
"Oklahoma Weather."

Okay, more details, another big fire danger day across the state with winds
kicking up to 40+mph during the day to go along with record-breaking heat and
low humidity, AND the drought you see up top. We have a Red Flag Fire Danger
for today through 10pm, and also a high wind watch thanks to a cold front
coming through this evening that's going to kick the winds up even more, AND
create a dangerous wind shift for firefighters, uhhhhh...fighting any fires.





Speaking of that heat, I think we obviously see the highest temperature ever
recorded for a March 26 in Oklahoma, topping the old record of 99 set at Mangum
Mesonet in 2020 at teh Sac & Fox Agency back in 1910.





The real question, however, is why Milky Way candy bars don't get more love? Is
it because they're overshadowed so much by their cousin, the Snickers bar?

Wait wait wait, the REAL real question is, will Oklahoma break its all-time
March high temperature record? Might as well, right?

The drought's bigtime leap this week was trying to play catch-up (which is better
than playing ketchup...a nasty game) to the impacts which are advancing rapidly
during what will probably end up being the warmest March on record, directly
after the warmest February on record. And it stretches farther back than that,
of course, to the beginning of the warmest climatological WINTER on record. Add
big deficits and you get an unusual cool-season flash drought situation. The
rainfall stats in the last 120 days, which stretches back to around Thanksgiving,
tell the painfully dry story.







Yikes, those maps look really bad, but not nearly as bad as the stat table for
the different parts of the state.



ZOINKS! Sorry, I had to elevate from "yikes" and go straight to a Shaggy from
Scooby Doo level exclamation point. So the Central Oklahoma climate division
has had its driest last 120-days on record, stretching back from today through
Nov. 26 of last year. Don't laugh, NE OK, because you've had your 2nd-driest
such period. And the state as a whole is at 4th-driest.

Central and NE OK are ahead of the same period in 1955-56, which is NOT a year
you want to be hanging out with, trust me. If they were your kids, you'd forbid
them to see 1955-56, and then they'd sneak off behind your back, and lots of
drama and yelling, so best to just knock it off!

Obviously this is delaying green up, which is gonna prolong the fire season. We
can see the damage from space in a couple of satellite products specifically used
to indicate the health of vegetation. The first is Quick-DRI, which looks for
flash drought. Here you can see obvious problems, especially along the I-44
corridor from SW to NE.



The next is Veg-DRI, which looks at general vegetation stress. Most of the
state is still "out of season" and grayed out, but the wheat belt from SE
through NC Oklahoma is showing signs of great distress.



Here's the thing though...the vegetation might be "out of season" on the
calendar, but we've been in spring since December, more or less. And we've
been in summer for the last week. Flies are out. Fleas and ticks have run
amuck. We're in season!

Hope abounds with possible storms later next week, which is showing up on the
CPC 6-10 day outlook with increased odds of above normal precip. Still with the
heat though.



And just starting to show up on the 7-day.



I don't see a lot of rain for the hardest hit areas across western Oklahoma
at this time, who would take *A* rain at this point.



That's how drought works. It doesn't rain, sometimes for a long time. Maybe
we'll be talking about floods soon, maybe even in a couple of weeks. Until then,
drought rages on.

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

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