MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... August 15, 2012 August 15, 2012 August 15, 2012 August 15, 2012
Latest druoth map (or is it?)
Happy August 15th day, otherwise known as the day after August 14th. Here's the latest drouth map, which came out on Aug. 10th. It shows crops being very poor across Oklahoma.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/aug10-drought-map.pdf
Pulled a fast one there, didn't I! And fast for a climatologist is glacially slow, so the bar is set fairly low. As a colleague remarked, that map from 1934 is eerily similar to the present-day situation. I'll just go out on a limb here and say for most Okies, I hope that's where the parallels to the 1930s end! Otherwise, 2019 is a long time to await the end of our current drought (Dust Bowl drought in Oklahoma ended in 1941).
Here is a summary of the weather for the week of Aug. 15-21- 1934. Again, eerily simlar!
?As the week progressed, temperatures moderated in all sections of the country, except in the Southwest, and by [the close of the week] abnormally cool weather prevailed in much of the Midwest where temperatures have been extremely high for a long time ... The reaction to the cooler weather was pronounced? Over much of the interior it was the first week with below-normal temperatures since last spring.?
Now here's a parallel to hope for, from late August, 1934:
?Recent rains have brought decided improvement to conditions in the Ohio Valley, Missouri, much of Arkansas, Oklahoma, western Texas, New Mexico, and much of Arizona? Moisture of the past week in the southwestern area was especially helpful in reviving fall pastures, supplying stock water, and permitting the planting of?small grains for fall pastures."
Back to the present, for some of you this is an especially happy morning with a bit of rain in the old coffee can. Fairly insignificant for most, but down in south central Oklahoma, the rain was a nice soaker of up to 1.5 inches.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/rainrfc.48hr.png
The areas around Lahoma and Okemah also saw around an inch, but again that rain was pretty localized.
For my house: zero-point-zero.
The area in blue also saw a bit of a cool down, and dropped into the low-to-mid 60s this morning.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/today.TAIR.min.grad.png
Two more hot days for most, the NWS' forecast gets much more pleasant on Friday and Saturday.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/wed-highs.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/thurs-highs.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/fri-highs.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/sat-highs.png
The HPC has the heaviest rain down to the southeast, but I think with that front hanging around Thursday night, we can see some heftier totals farther to the northwest (DISCLAIMER: a weather forecast by a climate guy).
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/5-day-rain.gif
A bit farther out, the CPC's 6-10 and 8-14 day outlooks continue to indicate elevated chances of cooler and drier than normal weather in store for our neck of the woods. We'll welcome the cooler chances and hope for better odds with the moisture.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/index.php http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/index.php
Our map of locations with less than a tenth of an inch of rainfall in any single day has shrunk considerably, with Norman still serving as the epicenter at 69 days.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/mesonet.rainfall.tenthinch.png
The same map but for 0.25 inches of rain is still a bit too orange.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120815/mesonet.rainfall.quarterinch.png
Drought, drought, whatever name it goes by ... time to go away!
Gary McManus Associate State Climatologist Oklahoma Climatological Survey (405) 325-2253 gmcmanus@mesonet.org
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