Mesonet Ticker for October 13, 2026

                
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October 13, 2026   October 13, 2026   October 13, 2026   October 13, 2026


We're here to pump...your basement out




I can hear the naysayers already: "Gary, eat a Strawberry Pop-Tart. It will make
you feel like a magnificent pagan god."

Wait, that wasn't the naysayers. That was the normal voices in my head. No, the
naysayers are...uhhhhhhh, saying: "Gary, these rainfall forecasts never work out."

Well, sorta and so on and so forth, but we need to take these blobular (new
word...we'll work it out later) rainfall forecasts for what they are. This 3-day
rainfall forecast isn't saying everywhere on the map as depicted will get that
much rainfall. It just doesn't work out that way because of the convective nature
of how the rain is gonna fall. Training thunderstorms, given the remarkable
amount of precipitable water in the atmosphere (or how much the rainfall would
be if all the available water "precipitated out" of the atmosphere). In some
cases it exceeds record values.

Don't take my word for it. Besides, you don't want my word...it's "perfunctory."
And we all know just how painful that can be! No, here's the word from the
experts at the Norman NWS Office:

"The aforementioned moisture advection today will foster
anomalously high precipitable water values. PWAT values of 1.5
inches (west) to over 2 inches (east) are expected by the
afternoon. To put this into perspective, the daily maximum PWAT
values for this time of year is about 1.66 inches, meaning that we
are likely to see record-breaking PWAT values for this time of
year."

Now you may be thinking, 1.5 to 2 inches...but that map shows more rainfall
than that. Well yeah, but those are DAILY values. So the potential for more
rainfall certainly exists. But here's the deal...somebody's gonna get a lot,
and somebody's NOT gonna get a lot. This is generally the case with these
types of systems where we have a stalled or slow-moving front to give us that
SW-to-NE axis of focus. Where that front sets up and interacts with the
impulses being shunted out by the upper-level low to the west is where that
axis of heaviest rainfall will occur. So there's still lots of wiggle room
to work with, as explained by our local NWS offices.







And with these rains comes the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth by Mother
Nature, with a non-zero chance of tornadoes, severe winds, and hail. Flash-
flooding is a given, of course.









You know the drill, and it ain't a Black and Decker. Get weather aware, stay
weather aware. Turn around, don't drown. Don't spit into the wind. Don't look
a gift horse in the mouth. Don't eat at Taco Bell after midnight.

Another hot day, with record-breaking record lows. No, the WARM kind, where our
lows were once again where our highs should be for this time of year.





And record highs today are probable in some areas.





That first frost-freeze is still coming Saturday for NW OK.



Better get through summer/spring/fall the next few days first.

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

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