Ticker for October 5, 2000

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
October 5, 2000    October 5, 2000    October 5, 2000    October 5, 2000


Some Rain Falls on Northwest Oklahoma

Some of the hardest-hit drought areas in Oklahoma received some rainfall
overnight and early this morning.  Six Mesonet stations collected at
least one-half inch during the event:

Alva     1.70"
Woodward 1.40"
Freedom  1.08"
Slapout   .97"
Cherokee  .95"
Medford   .63"

All six of these stations had received less than an inch of rainfall
since the end of August, and five of the six stations (all but Woodward)
had received less than an inch since the beginning of August.  Of course,
much more is needed to mitigate the effects of a severe August and
September.


What's this stuff?

Just two days after a maximum temperature of 106 F at Hollis set an
all-time state record for the state, cold air is plunging into
northern Oklahoma behind a front which is currently wobbling (roughly)
along Interstate 44:




Special Thanks

Those who follow the Recent Mesonet Rainfall statistics page at
http://climate.mesonet.org/rainfall/recentrain.html
have probably noticed that the recent rainfall numbers aren't the
only numbers that are getting very small.  The numbers in the "days
with missing data" columns are also shrinking and disappearing.

Thanks to long hours and hard work by the Mesonet Operations team, the
number of data "holes" (temporarily missing Mesonet data) is at an
all-time low.  This is a remarkable achievement, considering the
Mesonet features more instruments and observations than ever before,
and is still in transition to a new, more efficient communications
protocol.

Thank you from those of us who rely on the numbers that the Operations
folks deliver.