Ticker for January 21, 2018

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
January 21, 2018   January 21, 2018   January 21, 2018   January 21, 2018


Keep your butts to yourself




A rare Sunday Ticker, for a not-so-rare situation during fire season, especially
given the drought situation. Fire danger will be high today, enough so that the
NWS has issued a RED FLAG FIRE WARNING, as seen in the graphic above. Winds will
be howling, the relative humidity will be plunging, and any fire that sparks will
have lots of potential to get quickly out of control. Think a daycare full of kids
on those 6-hour energy drinks.

Things are serious enough that the Oklahoma Dept. of Emergency Management's
Oklahoma Emergency Operations Center has been activated to coordinate state
efforts in the case of an outbreak of wildfires. Here's a view of how the OK Dept.
of Forestry sees the situation today.



Sounding a bit more obvious, here's their advice to firefighters today from
their Oklahoma Firefighter Briefing.



And these counties are under burn bans, so if you start a fire, not only could
you get burned, you'll be in a world of hurt with the authorities.



So take your usual high fire danger day precautions, both protecting yourself
and property, AND preventing fires to begin with.



With the storm system approaching and the dryline already set up across
western OK



the potential for severe weather today will exist across eastern OK, and yes,
the possibility (albeit low) for tornadoes does exist.






Looks like Rocking and Rolling today in Oklahoma. Stay safe!

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