Mesonet Ticker for September 3, 2026

                
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September 3, 2026  September 3, 2026  September 3, 2026  September 3, 2026


Fall failure




There are a few important things I've learned in my life:

1. Don't blow your nose with your glasses on (snot is the WORST. FILTER. EVER.)
2. Never try and turn left right before an intersection.
3. You CAN spit into the wind, just duck and get the poor sap behind ya.
4. STAY OUT OF THE COMMENTS!

There's this myth, or misunderstanding (mythunderstanding?) around these here
parts that it normally doesn't rain during the summer, and that's why it normally
seems dry. Well, take it from somebody wholly on the abnormal scale that that's
not actually true. Or correct. Or right.

In fact, 30% to as much as 40% of our annual rainfall totals actually occur during
the climatological summer (June-August). And while that's somewhat heavily biased
towards June, which is in places either the first- or second-wettest month of
the year, July and August aren't bereft of rainfall either.







It just SEEMS like a very dry part of the year because the heat and vegetation
cause a spike in evaporative and transpirative demand. Bear with me here,
because I may have made up a word there, but our summer demands for water by
the atmosphere and those living plants often outpace the precipitation. That's
why fall and especially winter are a great time to recharge both surface water
and soil moisture.

But you can see during a summer like we're having (or had, climatologically
speaking) the damage done with the vegetation getting obliterated and soil
moisture isn't doing much better!





Just check out this ET (DON'T phone home, keep reading) map for 2026 thus far.
It shows the departure from the Mesonet long-term average, and for most of the
year, especially the first few months of 2026 and then again during August, the
demand for moisture has been out of control.



Aaaaaannnnndddd, expect that damage to continue to worsen, as it gets worser and
worser. Hey, my grammar can get worser and worser too, you know.

That all sets us up for a disaster right here in Drought City as we continue
in our stretch of 10-15 degrees above normal temps and almost no rainfall.









Maybe our time's coming. Maybe there really IS a cold front out there on Day 11
or 12 (or 13 or 14 or 15) in the forecast models. For the 10th day in a row.
Maybe it will rain later next week. Or next month. Argh!

But eventually, it WILL happen. The amount of solar radiation striking the
top of the atmosphere above our state (so clouds don't matter...SCIENCE!) is
diminishing every single day.



Now we just need clouds to actually matter!

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

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