Ticker for January 24, 2013

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
January 24, 2013   January 24, 2013   January 24, 2013   January 24, 2013


It's water, ain't it?

The U.S. Drought Monitor map released this morning contained one small change, and
as has been par for the course the last 10 months, it was for the worse. The only
changes we recommended were to increase the Exceptional (D4) drought area in
northeastern Oklahoma a little bit farther to the east. So the amount of D4 went
up by about one percent. Everything else remained the same.



That change was based on the lack of rainfall over the last 60 days up in that
area, where less than an inch has fallen since Thanksgiving.




Unfortunately, our big storm with all the possible gullywashers has turned into
something of a dud. However, I say when given a dud, turn it into Milk Duds (a
vastly underrated player in the field of boxed candy). So let's look at those
amounts now being forecast for a tenth to a half-inch and just say it's better
than nothing!



And it looks like this will come in a series of smaller events, but after that
goes by, another dry pattern will set in. At least that's what it looks like
now, so we need to get all we can over the next 7 days. The outlooks from CPC
for that first week of February show increased odds of dry weather.



Even through the periods of gray skies and intermittent moisture, fire danger
will still be elevated, as shown in this graphic from our friends at the Norman
NWS. Notice how the fire danger remains in the "high to very high" category
even when it says "chance of rain" at the bottom. During the cool season, the
day-to-day and even hour-to-hour weather conditions are extremely important.
Yes, you can have wildfires soon after rainfall when everything is dormant.



So let's enjoy this bit of moisture, and turn this dud into corn syrup; sugar;
vegetable oil (cocoa butter, palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil);
nonfat milk; dextrose; chocolate; contains 2% or less of: brown sugar; whey
(milk); mono and diglycerides; sodium bicarbonate; milk fat; salt; resinous
glaze; soy lecithin; tapioca dextrin; vanillin, artificial flavor!

Mmmmmmmmm, soy lecithinnnnnnn...

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