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. . . Ticker for November 19, 2020 . . .
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... November 19, 2020 November 19, 2020 November 19, 2020 November 19, 2020 Ho Ho NO! http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/outlooks.png Oh, you want snow for Christmas, do ya? Have you thought of moving? Yeah, not looking like we're going to have favorable background climate conditions conducive to a snowy December, but all is not lost. Well, SOME is lost, but when it comes to hoping for snow, just keep telling yourself "extreme events!" Remember when our mostly dry and mostly boring October was interrupted by a historic ice storm that blasted the western half of the state? That occurred during La Nina conditions as well, and reset the complete October weather story line. So that's your hope for snow, you just have to time it up correctly. My early Christmas forecast for Oklahoma? Clear to partly pie. Let's not worry about that for now, let's worry about our drought conditions. We now have drought starting to encroach on south central Oklahoma, coming up from Texas. So football players coming up from Texas...good. Drought coming up from Texas...bad (channel George Bush Sr.'s voice there if it helps). http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/20201117_OK_trd.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/1week-change-DM.png Want to see something interesting? Well, you're in the wrong place, but humor me. Take a look at this 4-week change in the DM map. Notice how Texas has had lots of deterioration while Oklahoma has had lots of improvements, for the most part? http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/4week-DM-change.png That's probably not entirely happenstance. La Nina does tend to have a more powerful signal to our south, so Texas gets more of the "warm, dry" cool season changes than we do, more often than not. However, that is also tempered by our extreme event, which can happen regardless of the ENSO status. Texas possibly just missed out while we were lucky. If you call 3 inches of radial ice and about a million people without power "lucky!" Let's say lucky in moisture, unlucky in moisture state. Now far western Oklahoma gets caught up in that area where the La Nina impacts are a bit more likely/impactful, so let's not forget the worst of the drought still remains in the far SW and western Panhandle areas. And that's why we have our not-so-pretty December outlooks above, and our not-so-beautiful outlooks for the December-February time frame as well. http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/dec-feb-temp-outlook.gif http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/dec-feb-precip-outlook.gif Not only was La Nina already pretty darned strong in October, with a key Sea Surface Temperature anomaly of -1.3C (threshold for La Nina is < -0.5C), but it's probably going to get stronger. We thought it would be a borderline moderate-strong event, but maybe more emphasis on the strong is in order. Moderate would be considered -1C to -1.4C, while strong is < -1.5C. http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/ENSO-model-forecast.png More and more of that model output is starting to dip below the -1.5C line into strong territory as we get later into the winter. Officially, CPC says there will be AT LEAST a 95% chance La Nina lasts through the winter, and 65% chance it will hang around through the spring. Impacts are a bit lesser usually on the tail end, as in the beginning as well. There will be a bit of momentum to those impacts, however, which can mess up our April and definitely our March, should the forecast come to fruition. We have hope for the weekend and again next week for some decent moisture. This is after we've gone a good 3 weeks without significant rainfall for most of the state. And the weaknesses are showing up on the 60-day rainfall maps, which sort of filters out the extreme event to end April. http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/60day-rainfall.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/60day-departure-rainfall.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/60day-pct-rainfall.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/60day-rain-stats.png The 30-day maps look much nicer, and so do the stats, but sometimes its important to remember those antecedent conditions. And again we have to get past today, where we will see near record temperatures in the NW, and plenty of wind to make matters worse for fire danger. http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/todays-forecast-highs.png http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/latest.oklahoma.winds.gif http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/latest.oklahoma.fire.gif Notice how the rainfall forecast for this weekend and into next week looks much nicer for Oklahoma than it does Texas? Hmmmmmm. http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20201119/7day-precip-forecast.gif We will definitely end up drier than normal if we keep going 3 weeks between precip events, but not as bad as Texas is going to be. La Nina favors the south, as I said, but the south definitely doesn't favor La Nina. This won't be an extreme event...just a couple of good old November storm systems, without the cold, bringing us some rain. Let's hope it doesn't fizzle. As for those snow hopes about 5 weeks from now? Let's lay off the "extreme event" angle and just go with "moderate event," shall we? Gary McManus State Climatologist Oklahoma Mesonet Oklahoma Climatological Survey (405) 325-2253 gmcmanus@mesonet.org ================================================== The OCS/Mesonet Ticker https://ticker.mesonet.org/ To subscribe or unsubscribe from the Ticker or for questions about the Ticker or its content Phone or Email the Ticker Manager at OCS Phone: 405-325-2253 Email: ticker@mesonet.org --------------------------------------------------- -C- Copyright 2024 Oklahoma Climatological Survey ===================================================