Ticker for December 17, 2018

                
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December 17, 2018  December 17, 2018  December 17, 2018  December 17, 2018


HO HO HOT!




Santa's coming early this year, and he's bring his flamethrower with him. Well,
things won't be THAT bad, but we are at that time of year when the weather can
turn lip-crinkling dry with relative humidity values into the teens and 20s, the
wind picks up with a dry cold front, and all that vegetation from our abundant
moisture back in late summer and fall lay dormant and/or dead, just waiting for a
spark. Now I'm not going to go back and read that monstrosity of a sentence I just
concocted, lest I find it is grammatically challenged, so I hope you get the gist
of it. Our local NWS offices give us the skinny on the fire danger this week,
which will peak with a fairly critical day on Thursday in conjunction with a cold
front. As per usual lately, it will be a mostly dry front with winds kicked up
into the 30mph range, gusts into the 40s.







This is all part of our normal cool season fire danger, uh, season, but it's
being exacerbated by prolonged drying we're seeing out across northern and
western Oklahoma, areas which have now gone 60+ days without significant
moisture.



And at least for the next 7 days, don't expect any relief. Doesn't mean it won't
happen, but it's not showing up in the forecast as of this morning.



We've gone into boring mode! Maybe things will get a bit more exciting next
week. No cold air is showing up, so chances for a white Christmas are minimal
(but they usually are).

Bah humbug if you're not traveling.

HO HO HO if you are!

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