Ticker for August 30, 2021

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
August 30, 2021    August 30, 2021    August 30, 2021    August 30, 2021


ARF!




Obviously the big weather story that dwarfs all other weather stories is the
catastrophic impact of Hurricane Ida along the Gulf Coast. Our hearts go out to
the folks that were (and are) in the path of that monster. We have been there,
right? Not with a hurricane (Tropical Storm Erin excepted, of course), but our
state unfortunately leads all other states with FEMA-declared disasters since the
year 2000. It takes an ice storm to produce damage on the scale of what occurred
along the Gulf Coast, and even then that's just really electrical infrastructure
damage. Imagine an EF-3 tornado the scope of an ice storm...that's what Louisiana
faced yesterday.

So be thankful for our boring weather while it lasts. Technically, the "dog days
of summer" ended back on August 11. The name comes from Greek and Roman lore
when the star Sirius (Canis Major, "big dog") would appear to rise along with
the sun during the hottest part of the summer. No, Siriusly! So for this year,
it was July 3-August 11. But if you just go by the description, we are probably
still qualifying, at least in Okie lore. If we take a look at the 2021 statewide
average temps (red line) vs. the long-term Mesonet average (black line) we see
that the actual dog days were cooler than what we're seeing now. And that
long-term average starts to decline by now, but we seem to be on our way up
or holding steady.



In a nutshell, today is probably the coolest day we'll see for the next week
and even a bit longer, maybe. We could see a major change pop up eventually,
but it's just not showing up yet.





Not bad today, peaking mid-week with some nasty humidity, but just sort of
stuck in the summer doldrums with low chances of rain.



Again, boring is good sometimes. We do need the rain, but dare we boast and
jinx it, leaving us with the Duckbilled Platypus Days of Winter??

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