Ticker for June 11, 2010

                
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June 11, 2010      June 11, 2010      June 11, 2010      June 11, 2010


Heat Burst-amundo!

Even the Fonz wouldn't have been cool last night in northwestern Oklahoma when
dying thunderstorms produced one of the coolest - errrrrrr ... hottest - hazards
around: the heat burst. Yes, I referenced the Fonz. Sit on it! The Ticker has
talked about heat bursts many times in the past, but they're still cool to take
a look at. And they do have an effect well past their deaths. For instance, take
a look at the Mesonet temperatures at 7:05 AM this morning:



Can you tell where the heat burst was? It's pretty obvious a heat burst affected
Harper County down through Major County. And if you're out working in the early
morning - wheat harvest perhaps - it would give you a chance to start cutting
wheat earlier with all that drying that went on overnight. However, a
construction job or even soccer practice would not be quite as pleasant. Check
out the Mesonet dewpoint temperatures from 7:05 AM:



The heat bursts brought winds of up to 60 mph to Camargo, Freedom and Woodward
after midnight:

Station       Wind Gusts 	Time
Camargo 	60 mph         3:05 am
Camargo 	59 mph 	       3:10 am
Camargo 	59 mph 	      12:10 am
Seiling 	58 mph         3:30 am
Camargo 	58 mph 	       2:50 am
Camargo 	58 mph 	       2:35 am
Camargo 	57 mph 	       3:35 am
Camargo 	57 mph 	       3:25 am
Camargo 	57 mph 	       2:40 am
Camargo 	57 mph 	       2:25 am
Camargo 	56 mph 	       3:20 am
Freedom 	56 mph 	       2:45 am
Woodward 	56 mph        12:10 am
Camargo 	55 mph 	       3:45 am
Camargo 	55 mph 	       2:55 am
Freedom 	55 mph 	       2:50 am
Camargo 	55 mph 	       2:20 am


The event can be followed in this quicktime movie from WeatherScope showing
the Vance AFB radar, the air temperature (colored gradient) and wind speeds
(white wind flags). You'll notice the event starts in Harper County and ends up
centered over Fairview. This file is a bit large (~10 Mb) so you may want to
download it before playing:

https://content.mesonet.org/ticker/archive/20100611/heatbursts.mov

It certainly made a difference in the high-low temperature map since midnight.
Notice that some of the high temperatures in the northwest are in the 90s
already. Those were actually set overnight with the heat bursts. And the low
temperature at Fairview only made it to 79 degrees despite the dry air while
the mid-70s to the east were due to the moist air in place.



And of course, you can see the event in our stations' meteograms, like this one
at Cherokee:



Notice the sharp dewpoint drop and increases in wind speed and temperature.

Very cool!

Gary McManus
Associate State Climatologist
Oklahoma Climatological Survey
gmcmanus@mesonet.org
(405) 325-2253