Ticker for February 15, 2012

                
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February 15, 2012  February 15, 2012  February 15, 2012  February 15, 2012


January-ish weather is back ... for now

Tired of this two-week burst of winter? Looks like it's moved on for a bit and
our lovely early-springtime weather of January has returned. It's actually pretty
remarkable how different things became one we entered February. Looking at the
statewide averages from the Mesonet, the high temperatures have let us down
while the lows have tried to boost us a bit.

-****-
Feb. 1-14 Statewide Mesonet Averages
Avg. High     Avg. Low     Avg. Mean
Mesonet     47.3F         29.4F        38.4F
Normal      52.2F         27.0F        39.6F
Departure   -4.9F          2.4F        -1.2F
-***-

Now compare that with the January numbers.

-****-
January 1-31 Statewide Mesonet Averages
Avg. High     Avg. Low     Avg. Mean
Mesonet     56.3F         29.6F        43.0F
Normal      47.9F         24.1F        36.0F
Departure    8.4F          5.5F         7.0F
-***-

That's right, so far February has been about 5 degrees cooler than January
across the state.

-****-
Avg. High     Avg. Low     Avg. Mean
January     56.3F         29.6F        43.0F
Feb. 1-14   47.3F         29.4F        38.4F
Diff.        9.0F          0.3F         4.6F
-***-

Most of the difference comes in the statewide average daily high temperature,
a drastic change of 9 degrees from January to February thus far. The low
temperatures are virtually equal. Will February end up colder than January?
It's certainly not unheard of, occurring 25 times since 1895. The largest
difference came in 1989 when February was 9.5 degrees colder than January.
That should give you pause should anybody try to convince you that winter has
faded completely.

As we get deeper into the transition period of winter to spring, it gets a
tad more rare to see successive months get colder. March has only been colder
than February nine times, and April has been colder than March only twice (the
last being in 2007 and resulted in pretty severe agricultural damage). A
colder May than April occurred once, in 1957, and June has never been cooler
than May. But the point is that as you get more and more influence from the sun,
it eventually becomes pretty rare and then nonexistent.

Will this February end up cooler than January? Too tough to tell at this
point. The short-term outlooks from the National Weather Service's Climate
Prediction Center indicate increased chances of cooler than normal weather for
most of Oklahoma the last week of February, and the coming week looks close to
normal temperature-wise.




For some meaningless minutia, I certainly remember February 1989 since that's
the month that the "Lonesome Dove" mini-series debuted on television. I remember
sitting transfixed in front of the TV watching the sweltering summer scenes
in envy as the cold wind howled outside.

"Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit," and remember, we don't rent pigs.

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