MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... September 18, 2012 September 18, 2012 September 18, 2012 September 18, 2012
Rains diminish wildfire danger
The Governor has released 22 counties from the statewide (or no-longer statewide) burn ban that has been in place for several weeks.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/BurnBanMap09172012a.gif
You will notice that Tulsa County immediately implemented a county-wide burn ban after being released. That is at the Tulsa County Commissioners' discretion, and obviously they felt conditions have not improved enough to ease burning restrictions. But if you look at the patterns on that map, they match up fairly well with the 30-day rainfall maps from the Mesonet.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/last30daystot.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/last30dayspct.png
You can also see Tulsa County's dilemma there with Bixby in the southern part of the county getting 5.5 inches of rain but Skiatook, which is right across the northern border in Osage County, only received 2.8 inches. Even statewide, the last 30 days remain dry with an average of 1.23 inches, 0.9 inches below normal and the 26th driest Aug. 19-Sep. 17 dating back to 1921.
The wildfire relief also shows up on the KBDI map, which signifies the probability of wildfires based on drought and soil moisture. The higher the KBDI number, the higher the fire danger (basically).
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/latest.kd.png
The rain has improved topsoil moisture and also greened things up, hence the reduced fire danger. Unfortunately, the moisture hasn't reached those lower levels just yet, at least over much of the state.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/2inch-soilmoisture.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/10inch-soilmoisture.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/60inch-soilmoisture.png
And the reason for continued fire danger and the drought woes is evidenced by the Mesonet rainfall maps since May 1. Really I could pick any odd date to begin from the last 6 months or so and it would come up looking dry.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/may1-sep18-tots.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/may1-sep18-dep.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/may1-sep18-pct.png
The statewide average through that period was 8.98 inches, 8.2 inches below normal (or 52% of normal), and the driest such period at least back to 1921. The driest May-September on record according to the official data from NCDC was last year's 9.74 inches. We'll see how things shake out over this last 10 days of the month, and also how the NCDC numbers compare to the Mesonet numbers, but we could be looking at the driest May-September on record in the state two years in a row.
The NWS forecasts don't give us much hope for any moisture over the next week, and the CPC outlooks for the remainder of the month are Debbie Downers as well.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/610prcp.new.gif http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20120918/814prcp.new.gif
Gary McManus Associate State Climatologist Oklahoma Climatological Survey (405) 325-2253
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