Mesonet Ticker for October 8, 2026

                
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October 8, 2026    October 8, 2026    October 8, 2026    October 8, 2026


Tropical dreaming




El Niño keeps getting stronger (and Leon's getting LARRRRGGERRRR), and the odds
that it reaches historic strength have gone up again, for crying out loud.
Before I go further, or farther, let me reiterate again that the strength of
the El Nino doesn't mean stronger impacts, just makes "typical" impacts more
likely...for us, a wetter than normal cool season. Okay.

The main El Niño monitoring region in the tropical Pacific warmed to 2.1°C
above normal during September, which is above "super," or "very strong"
strength, but we can't quite call it that yet because it has to stay that
way for three consecutive months to be OFFICIALLY called one of those
honorifics. But CPC says the odds of being a super/very strong El Nino for the
September-November time frame are 100%, so there ya go.



Farther east, parts of the Pacific were more than 4°C, or about 7°F, above
normal. CPC now gives the October-December period an 83% chance of reaching
what it calls "historic" strength. That’s up from 75% last month. In this case,
historic means reaching a level that would top any previous El Niño in that
particular record going back to 1950.

CPC still expects El Niño to remain strong to very strong through the winter.
Now, does that guarantee a wet or snowy winter for Oklahoma? Nope. El Niño can
tilt the odds toward certain weather patterns, but it can’t tell us exactly
what’ll happen in our backyard. The main takeaway is that this thing was
already expected to be a big one. Since last month, it’s gotten stronger, the
Pacific has gotten warmer, and confidence in a historic event has increased.

Weird wild stuff is going on in the Pacific because of this El Nino, and I'm
not just talking about Isaac on the Lido Deck (Gen X'ers, you know...the rest,
google). We have more tropical systems than we can shake a stick at (I don't
recommend that, by the way), exhibiting much more "power," or intensity, than
normal.



Keep in mind that's only through Sept. 21, and things have only increased since
then. That's a direct consequence of the incredible heat being exhibited in that
part of the equatorial Pacific. The water is exceptionally warm and deep,
providing a large reservoir of energy for tropical cyclones.

That's one way El Nino can impact our weather, by sending those tropical storm
remnants up our way. Like I showed yesterday, we're still watching the
spaghetti plots of Tropical Storm Simon to see if it's Okie Dreamin'.



Simon is expected to become a major hurricane by the time it bashes itself
against the Mexican coastal region, which is better than an admiral hurricane,
I guess. It looks likely to come up our way, there's just too much uncertainty
on where and when it gets up here and how it interacts with the big low pressure
system expected to dig south along the West Coast before ejecting out to the
east. Each run of the forecast models is an adventure, I tell ya.

Looking at the latest Drought Monitor, though...we need some help. We did
decrease the drought across the state, and even disappeared it in the western
Panhandle, but just not enough rainfall over most of the area to do more than
just decrease the intensity slightly.





The 60-day maps tell the story of this continuing drought.







Short-term relief vs. long-term impacts mean things like topsoils get a good
moisture recharge, but lower soils remain parched.





And parched lower soils is (or are???) one thing we look at enabling drought
reintenification, especially in the face of the fall heat wave we're
experiencing once again, with highs in the 80s and even a few 90s.

Heck, we might get close to 100 in SW OK next week, for crying out loud!



Odds of a bigtime pattern shift are increasing for later next week, with a
good fall cold front hopefully dropping us back to at least normal, if not
below, and giving us a chance of rain again.

Keep it Simple, Simon, and give us our rain!

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

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