Ticker for April 5, 2018

                
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April 5, 2018      April 5, 2018      April 5, 2018      April 5, 2018


You serious, Clark?




In what's could be a damaging blow to some of the drought-stressed winter
wheat, Mother Nature has decided the first week of April needs a bit of February
thrown in...so get ready for winter coming up Friday night and into Saturday.
She's even nice enough to throw in the chance for snow and ice and all that other
good stuff.



The strong cold front coming through tomorrow will first try and generate some
storms (you guessed it...probably to the southeast of I-44), a few possibly
severe. Again, pretty tame stuff for April in Oklahoma. Watch for a bit of hail
and high winds.



Outside of that, we're still dealing with the 6-month long drought hammering
the northwestern half of the state. The latest Drought Monitor shows more D4
(exceptional, the worst category) drought spreading into the far western
Panhandle as those areas have seen less than a quarter-inch of rain in the last
6 months.

I think that bears repeating. THOSE AREAS HAVE SEEN LESS THAN A QUARTER-INCH OF
RAIN IN THE LAST 6 MONTHS!!







The amount of Exceptional drought is now more than 15%, mostly confined to the
far northwest.



Little relief is seen for that area of the state in the next 7 days, but maybe
a bit here and there.



When it finally warms up for good, and it will, western Oklahoma is going to
need a lot of moisture to make up for the long-standing deficits. A cautionary
tale for sure.

And be sure to save the neck for me.

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