Mesonet Ticker for April 7, 2026

                
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Freeze me? Freeze you!




Chances I've eaten my last Pop-Tart? 0%
Chances I've eaten my last STRAWBERRY Pop-Tart? 100%
Chances we've had our last freeze? 90% maybe? 100%? 87.5%

So there ARE absolutes in life, but forecasting Oklahoma's weather ain't one of
them, even if forecasting Pop-Tarts is. Barring some unforeseen calamity (hey,
"Unforeseen Calamity" was the song my wife sang at our wedding!), I have indeed
eaten my last Strawberry Pop-Tart. Barring some strong cold front in the third
week of April, we have maybe probably seen our last freeze.

As you can see from that top graphic from the North American Ensemble Forecast
System (NAEFS), MOST of Oklahoma has a minimal chance (0-10%) of another freeze
through April 21. Now northern OK has a bit of a better chance, but even then it
isn't significant.

If we went by climatology (and we should...because climatology rules), then it
would take an outlier for most of us to see another freezing temperature this
spring, as you can see from our normal earliest and average final spring freeze
maps.





Climatologically speaking, everybody save for the western Panhandle is beyond
their earliest last freeze date, and then again for all but the northern 1/5th
or so of the state for their average (median, actually...I could tell ya but
then I'd have to kill ya, with boredom) last spring freeze.

But this is like forecasting whether you'll get a White Christmas from November:
climatology says one thing, but eventually weather takes over. And we do have
some clues from the weather side of things, in addition to the top graphic. Like
the temperature outlooks for the next couple of weeks from the CPC.





So we have several pieces of evidence to say "Yeah, we've probably seen our last
freeze for most of the state." Northern OK and especially the Panhandle, it's
a bit more shaky than that. And if I can interject one more piece of
climatological evidence to muddle the matter (and we all know just how painful
THAT can be), we have the LATEST final spring freeze climatology to say "not so
fast!"



I feel like we have answered nothing with that last map thrown in there, but
remember that's the extreme outlier, and MOST of the evidence points towards
MOST of us probably have had our final freeze, and if'n you want to drill down
even further, even more likely that MOST of us have seen our final HARD freeze.
The Panhandle, probably all bets are off for these predictions, and a bit of
caution also for those in northern Oklahoma. If we do get that outlier freeze
as we get into the third or fourth week of April, then I guess we got what was
coming to us, because there are no absolutes in life.

Except Pop-Tarts.

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



                

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