Ticker for May 4, 2021

                
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The Climajerk




It's the day we've (just a few) all (again, just a few) of us (seriously? Just a
few!) have been waiting for...the new climate normals! Yes, it's that decennial
event when the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI, formerly
NCDC) update their 30-year normals. This go-round we're losing the 1980s and
adding the 2010s, so from 1981-2010 to 1981-2020. Above we see the changes in the
annual normals between the two periods; in this case, the current normals vs. the
previous normals. Not a lot of shock here. The current normals are warmer than
the last ones in Oklahoma, and much of the state shows a slight drying, probably
associated with the desertification of the, uhhhhhh, Desert Southwest, creeping
up this way. My hometown of Buffalo (THE HOMETOWN to be from in Oklahoma if you
want to be anybody...fight me) lost a couple of inches from about 24 inches of
precip per year to about 22. Now my belly has gained a couple of inches due to
dessertification, but that's a different story.

Here's what NCEI has to say about these annual normal changes:

"Most of the U.S. was warmer, and the eastern two-thirds of the
contiguous U.S. was wetter, from 1991–2020 than the previous normals
period, 1981–2010. The Southwest was considerably drier on an annual
basis, while the central northern U.S. has cooled somewhat. There
are twenty years of overlap between the current normals and the
previous iteration (1991–2010), which makes the annual changes between
these two datasets somewhat muted compared to trends over the same
period. Monthly and seasonal changes are more dynamic. For example,
the current normals for the north-central U.S. are cooler in the spring,
while much of the Southeast is now warmer in October, cooler in
November, and warmer again in December. Atmospheric circulation
dynamics and surface feedbacks result in substantial differences
from month-to-month and region-to-region."

We can take a look at the OCS Climagraphs to see what we lost and gained as
we dumped the 1980s and added the 2010s. These graphs show the statewide
average annual temperature and precipitation values for 1895-2020.





The temperature graph is pretty striking...definitely losing those cool 1980s
(hey, it WAS cool...we had big hair, well, I had actual hair, and we wore
jams and listened to Van Halen) and adding some hot 2010s action. The 2010s
include the hottest year on record for Oklahoma, 2012 (ARGH), and that brutal
summer of 2011 (DOUBLE ARGH!). Most of the statewide average temperatures during
the 1980s were well below the long-term average, the opposite for the 2010s.
Precip is more funky, with that monster year of 2015 and the littler monster
year of 2019 adding their totals to the mix. But we also added the drought of
2010-15.

Here are the differences between the 1991-2020 and 1981-2010 normals for the
core seasonal months of January (winter), April (spring), July (summer), and
October (fall).

















We're just delving into the data, and we will start implementing these new
normals into our products here in the next few days, weeks, months. There will
obviously be some differences in images when the new normals are implemented.
Warmer than normal won't look quite so drastic as it did with the old normals,
and depending on the changes, drier or wetter than normal will look different,
too. I haven't done the nuances any justice at all, these are just quick glances
and thoughts.

Here is the NCEI page with the normals info. Take a look around.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/noaa-delivers-new-us-climate-normals

And then you can dive into the new normals data directly.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/us-climate-normals

Who knows what the next decade holds. See ya in 2031!

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