Ticker for February 22, 2021

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
February 22, 2021  February 22, 2021  February 22, 2021  February 22, 2021


Long live the spring!




At 12:05 pm Saturday, February 20, our long nearly two-week winter nightmare came
to an end, leaving the Lahoma Mesonet site as the winner (loser?) in the "HOW
LONG CAN YOU STAY BELOW FREEZING" sweepstakes at a bold 334 hours. That's 13.9
days to you and me, boosting February 2021 up into the company of other frozen
Oklahoma months, like December 1983, January 1930, and January/February, 1905. And
a host of others.

Thirteen is something of a magic number for these events...some made it and others
didn't. Oklahoma City hit 11 days, falling just short of it's record 13 days at
or below freezing in December 1983. If you went by the actual hours divided by
24, you'd end up with 12 days, but that's not how it works, unfortunately. OKC
had above freezing high temps on Feb. 8 and Feb. 20 to bookend the Feb. 9-19
below-freezing period. Tulsa made it 10 days officially with highs at or below
freezing, also falling behind their record of 13 days from Dec. 1983. And nobody
got close to our state record of 20 days from Fort Reno and Winnview from Jan/Feb
1895, and Guymon from Dec/Jan 1911-1912. At any rate, here's the last map of
consecutive frozen hours for the event.



Here's what Lahoma's meteogram looks like, from the beginning of the event on
February 6 through the end on February 20.



Now this map isn't REALLY a consecutive hours map, since some stations started
freezing later, came out of freezing earlier and went below freezing again (so
a bit of a double dip), but this is something of a summary of an event from
when the May Ranch Mesonet site started the whole shebang at Noon on Feb. 6
through Lahoma's last foray below freezing at 12:05 pm on Feb. 20. (out of a
possible 336 hours). You can also see the lowest temperature reached by each
site during that period.



AND, plenty of sites hit their all-time record lows during the event. This is
Mesonet only, and the Mesonet temperature records date back to 1997. The values
in blue were set either Feb. 15 or 16, 2021, while the majority of the values
in black came from the Feb. 10, 2011, deep freeze. You can see Nowata's state
record lowest minimum temperature of -31 degrees from the Feb. 10 event back
in 2011. However, most Mesonet sites reached their record lows this go around.
Some were undoubtedly close to their all-time record lows.



For example, Broken Bow's previous record low was -5 degrees set twice on Jan.
12 and Jan. 22, 1918. The Mesonet's -9 degrees beat that old mark by 4 degrees.

And then there was the time EVERY SINGLE MESONET SITE was below zero,
simulltan...simultaneus...at the same time.



There are a whole host of other records that we could talk about, like OKC's
8 consecutive days below 20 degrees is their longest on record (dating back to
1890), beating out Dec. 1983's 5. Tulsa reached #2 with 5 days, behind Dec. 1983's
7 days. So many records, so little time.

As for snowfall, here are some total maps put together by our local NWS offices
that give you a better idea of just how much fell over the event. Still waiting
on parts of the state, but those will come soon I'm sure. Remember, there were
two separate snowstorms, Feb. 14-15 and Feb. 16-17. Because you know, Mother
Nature just couldn't stand to give us just one!







Okay, that's enough for now. More weather will happen this week...warm tomorrow,
some rain later, maybe mixed with snow in the NW, storms over the weekend,
volcanoes, blah blah blah.

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