Ticker for May 17, 2011

                
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May 17, 2011       May 17, 2011       May 17, 2011       May 17, 2011


Drought, Tornadoes, Droughts and Tornadoes

The entire Ticker staff has been very busy today, trying to quantify drought
conditions for the U.S. Drought Monitor AND attempting to make the Kessel run
in less than 12 parsecs. Space travel? I'm so glad you brought it up, because we
have a couple of images from space that shed a new light on the drought in the
Southern Plains.

The latest Vegetation Health Index satellite analysis captures the damage drought
has done to the state's vegetation, especially in the southwestern quarter.



When a quarter of your state resembles bare ground from space in May, that can't
be a good thing. The change since last year at this time is quite remarkable.



Another by-product of a strong El Nino (2009-10) vs. strong La Nina (2010-11).

You can read more about Vegetation Health Index here:

http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/vci/VH/index.php

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With possible severe weather (AND RAIN!) in the works for this week, it's a
good time to take a look back at the Oklahoma tornado count thus far in 2011.
The numbers have gone up just a bit. Preliminary data from the NWS now show
49 confirmed (work with me here)tornadoes for Oklahoma so far this year. Of
those 49, 48 occurred in April and none have touched down west of I-35. The
48 tornadoes in April breaks the record of 40 for that month from 1957.

Year	April 	  Jan-Apr   Annual Total
2011     48         49          ???
1957	 40	    44	        107
1991	 24	    41	         73
1984	 23	    29	         50
1995	 22	    24	         79
1965	 21	    24	         74
1956	 20	    23	         49
1960	 19	    28	         98
1999	 19	    26	        145
1996	 18	    19	         48
1964	 17	    17	         53
1979	 17	    22	         51
1993	 17	    23	         64
2009	 17	    24	         34
1968     16         16           55

An interesting tangent here as we go opposite over adjacent ... not only was
April 1957 the second wettest April on record in Oklahoma with a statewide
average of 8.18 inches:



but 1957 was also the wettest year on record in Oklahoma at 48.21 inches.



* 1957, wet statewide, lots of tornadoes statewide (ended up with 107, second
highest total on record)

* 2011, wet in the east (so far), dry in the west (so far), record number of
tornadoes in the east, none in the west (so far)

Anecdotal, my dear Watson.

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A final bit of advice when talking drought and tornadoes ... nobody worries
about upsetting a Wookie. Let the Climatologist win.

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