MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... July 16, 2020 July 16, 2020 July 16, 2020 July 16, 2020
Droughtdome
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20200716/20200714_OK_trd.png
One drought enters, two droughts leave. Not exactly the order things worked in Thunderdome, but you get the drift. Mother Nature was both Master and Blaster over the last week. She saw fit to blast a lot of drought away in north central and northeast Oklahoma, but in a show of force, showed us she is still master of our drought fortunes by shutting off the moisture in southwestern Oklahoma.
Here you can see the rainfall that helped, the lack of rainfall that hurt, and the resulting change in the U.S. Drought Monitor map.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20200716/10-day-rain-totals.png
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20200716/1week-DM-change.png
The big winner, obviously, was the Blaine/Kingfisher county region where 3-5 inches of rain fell, obliterating that region's extreme drought down with a rare two-category improvement on the DM (Drought Monitor, not Dungeon Master...no 20-sided die roll will help here). And then you can see the somewhat broad scale intensification across SW OK. Now remember, the DM only considers rainfall from 7am to 7am on successive Tuesdays, so any ran that fell after 7am (come on, stay with me here!) Tuesday wasn't considered in the map. That includes that rain that fell last night, and is still falling now!
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20200716/12hour-rain-totals.png
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20200716/current-radar.png
So we possibly have some improvements for NEXT week's map already built in before this week's map even came out. Nice, no? And we might see the same type of somewhat unexpected outbreaks of drought-quenching rains coming up early next week, although now that I have mentioned them they shouldn't be unexpected. They are low chances for now, mainly in northern Oklahoma, but that's where we started with this week's rain as well.
So maybe this 7-day forecast rain map won't end up as ugly as it looks?
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20200716/7day-rain-forecast.gif
Break a deal, face the wheel. Okay, we'll take the wheel, bring on some rain!
This Ticker brought to you by Mad Max, Aunty and the fine denizens of Bartertown. Hey, I didn't know what "denizens" meant either, but it turns out I guessed correctly.
Gary McManus State Climatologist Oklahoma Mesonet Oklahoma Climatological Survey (405) 325-2253 gmcmanus@mesonet.org
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