MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... October 13, 2022 October 13, 2022 October 13, 2022 October 13, 2022
No thanks!
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/20221011_usdm.png
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/20221011_ok_trd.png
We asked for and received a major increase in the worst categories of drought intensity coverage for the state of Oklahoma by the U.S. Drought Monitor. Now don't get us wrong...we didn't ask for the DROUGHT, just the drought designations. We wouldn't ask for this on our worst enemy.
DENNIS QUAID, YOU ARE LUCKY WE CAN'T!
Don't ask. But here's the deal...this is again the most of those two worst USDM drought designations since Feb. 19, 2013. Here you can see comparisons from that map and our current map...Oklahoma only.
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/2022-vs-2013-DM.png
Now it was probably at its worst back then in the Sept. 2011 time frame, right after we survived the hottest summer in U.S. history for any state.
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/20110913_ok_text.png
A lot of folk probably don't remember but it started raining right after that, and by spring of 2012, we were nearly out of drought.
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/20120508_ok_text.png
But by the end of that summer, we were right back at it again.
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/20120925_ok_text.png
Here's a look at Oklahoma's drought timeline for that 2010-15 drought, which was actually a series of shorter droughts stitched together, much like our current drought is actually an amalgam of long-term (Aug. 2021-present) and a short- term (June 11-present) droughts.
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/OK-usdm-time-series.png
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/OK-short-usdm-time-series.png
All of this is chronicled, along with COVID, Disco, McDonald's McRib sandwich, and Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew, in my new book: "Things I Never Want to Experience Again."
We had this worsening of drought despite some somewhat decent rains over the last week, but you simply cannot erase deficits of 8-to-12-to-20 inches of rain over the last year or so with a quarter or even an inch of moisture.
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/7day-rain-totals.png
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/del120day_rain.current.png
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/delcalendaryear_rain.current.png
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/del365day_rain.current.png
There appears to be help on a way associated with that cold front coming this weekend. The front should stall out and allow some rain to occur Saturday night into Sunday. Mostly across Southern OK, but we have hopes for it to spread north. Very small hopes, but that's about all ya got during these big droughts.
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/5day-rain-forecast.gif
That will probably be the end of the rain for awhile, unfortunately, as we go into NW flow and see mostly-dry cold fronts during the following week or so.
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/oct18-22-precip-outlook.png
La Nina is expected to continue, reaching borderline moderate strength in the following months, before transitioning to ENSO Neutral by spring.
https://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20221013/ENSO-outlook.gif
That's not good news, climatologically speaking (and if you start speaking climatologically, seek out mental health services immediately, especially if you combine it with Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew), but it's not so bad meteorologically speaking. Lots of bigtime stuff can still happen in the day-to-day weather, including big storms, big rains, big snows, and in the worst case scenario, big fires.
Gary McManus State Climatologist Oklahoma Mesonet Oklahoma Climatological Survey gmcmanus@mesonet.org
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