Ticker for September 22, 2005

                
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September 22, 2005 September 22, 2005 September 22, 2005 September 22, 2005



Looking Southward ...

As Hurricane Rita occupies our consciousness, here are some statistics
related to Oklahoma's tropical history:

Here are the state's top one-through-seven-day rainfall totals:
Duration  Ppt Total    Ending Date      Location
1-day      15.68"     Oct 11, 1973     Enid
2-day      18.02"     Oct 14, 1981     Tishomingo
3-day      18.68"     Oct 14, 1981     Kingston
4-day      22.47"     Oct 16, 1981     Tishomingo
5-day      23.12"     Oct 17, 1981     Tishomingo
6-day      23.95"     Oct 18, 1981     Coalgate
7-day      24.95"     Oct 18, 1981     Coalgate

The one-day record at Enid was a local event, but the other six are
all related to Hurricane Norma's interaction with a stalled front
in 1981. The remnants of Norma dumped tremendous amounts of rain on
much of south-central, southeast and eastern Oklahoma (as well as much
of north Texas). In Oklahoma, a swath stretching from around Eufaula
to the Lake Texoma region saw more than a foot of rain, with local
values exceeding 15 inches.

Other notable recent hurricane flood-makers are:
Hurricane Tico, 1983. The Hurricane's interaction with (you guessed
it) a stalled front produced some pretty staggering one-day totals:
10.62"  Shawnee
8.81"  Prague
8.45"  Seminole
8.40"  Roosevelt
8.37"  Norman
8.00"  Purcell
8.00"  Welty

Hurricane Paine, 1986. Like Tico and Norma, Paine was a Pacific
storm that interacted with (noticing a trend?) a surface boundary
to produce widespread flooding. Accumulations in excess of fifteen
inches were commonplace in the opening days of October 1986.
North-central Oklahoma received the greatest rainfall totals, and
the Tulsa area saw flood damages that approached $35 million.


Oh, One Other Hurricane Note

At 5:02 am August 30, 2005, when Katrina made her first landfall on
the Louisiana coast, hurricane force winds extended about 125 miles
from her eye. The area impacted by hurricane-force winds during that
single minute was fourteen times larger than the total area of all
tornadoes that occurred in Oklahoma during the past fifty years.