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January 12, 2016 January 12, 2016 January 12, 2016 January 12, 2016
64 trillion gallons of water on the wall...
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20160112/dr-evil.jpg
The official 2015 statewide average rainfall total for Oklahoma is in from NCEI
(formerly NCDC) and it's a tad lower than our first estimate, but still shatters
the old record from 1957 of 47.88 inches. The official 2015 statewide average is
now 52.96 inches, beating the previous record by a whopping 5.08 inches. That
equates to, if my math is correct, well, an unimaginable amount of water that
fell across the state of Oklahoma during 2015. With a surface area of 69898 square
miles, and at a depth of 52.96 inches, that equates to:
64,332,596,941,385 gallons of water. That's right, about 332 million gallons of
water more than 64 TRILLION gallons of water. To put that in perspective, that's
1 gallon more than 64,332,596,941,384 gallons of water. And most of that fell
from April-July and November-December. The other 6 months were duds for the most
part.
That 64 trillion gallons of water equates to 8,234,572,408,497,280 ounces of water.
That's more than 8 ZILLION ounces of water. No wait, that's what we would have
called it back in elementary school. Actually more than 8 QUADRILLION ounces of
water.
Hmmmm, just doesn't have the same pizzazz. Suppose you went to McDonald's and
wanted to buy 8 ZILLION (okay, quadrillion) ounces of Coke in 32 ounce cups?
Well, you'd end up 257,330,387,765,540 drinks. At a dollar apiece, that would
bring you bill up to...$257 trillion, plus change.
In other words, a lot of water fell on Oklahoma in 2015, and made up for a lot
of water that didn't fall on Oklahoma from late 2010 through March 2015. And we
paid a heavy price for it. So far in 2016, we've had a much more manageable
0.58 inches statewide, which by my calculations comes out to 3 gallons. Okay,
it's probably a lot more than that, but I ain't going through all those
calculations again!
And it doesn't look like we'll be adding too much in the next week or so.
http://ticker.mesonet.org/archive/20160112/7day-precip-forecast.gif
But that's okay. You deserve a break today (and this week and this month).
At McDonald's?
Gary McManus
State Climatologist
Oklahoma Mesonet
Oklahoma Climatological Survey
(405) 325-2253
gmcmanus@mesonet.org
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