Ticker for May 3, 2018

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
May 3, 2018        May 3, 2018        May 3, 2018        May 3, 2018


Glub Glub




We were rocking and rolling last night, lots of sis-boom-bah and whatnot with
tornado warnings, large hail, severe winds, etc. We've said many times, you want
rain in Oklahoma during spring, you're gonna have to put up with a lot of
nonsense to go with it. Well, here's the nonsense.



Even I sent my family to the storm shelter for a brief minute with the line
approached Moore and a spinup along the leading edge of the storm was noted on
radar. After that, just rain, and lots of it. Great totals to be had for much of
the state, despite the headache of flooding that went along with it.



Another round last night and this morning gave us another blast of rain, and it is
now moving off to the east and will exit the state later today.



But remember, those rains are not considered on this week's Drought Monitor
report due to the 7am cutoff on Tuesday morning, so we will most definitely see
some improvements next week where some of these larger totals coincide with
continuing drought.



Before that, however, what we saw was a return to the heat and high winds for
western Oklahoma, and therefore a bit of D4 was introduced into SW OK. That
D4 (or Exceptional Drought) is the highest intensity level on the DM. You can
see exactly where it was added with the 1-week change map.



So everybody has gotten at least some rain, but some of the hardest hit areas
are still waiting for their dose. Our next chance comes early next week. Nothing
much showing up yet, but last night's dose wasn't exactly an eye catcher either.



Back to the old drought drawing board!

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