Ticker for January 20, 2022

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
January 20, 2022   January 20, 2022   January 20, 2022   January 20, 2022


La Ninanono




Well, sometimes you'd love to be wrong. You know, like "Hey guys, I think that
chicken I cooked last night was bad," or "I could have sworn I put the toilet
seat back down." See, the worry when we saw another La Nina cropping up was that,
as double-dip La Ninas are wont to do, it would act like the last double-dip
event during the fall 2017-spring 2018 period. That one wasn't pretty. And this
one is following just about the same course. The outlooks above portend a very
bad beginning to spring, following the La Nina template to the letter with:

* Increased odds of above normal temperatures across the Southern Tier of the
U.S., including all of Oklahoma.

* Increased odds of below normal precipitation across the Southern Tier, including
the western half of Oklahoma.

* Drought persistence or intensification where it exists in the state as of today.

Now that's not good news, but luckily, that isn't written in stone either. Have
you ever tried to write in stone? Luckily, the CPC forecasters don't either.
Still lots of time for a big pattern change. Odds don't favor it, but they don't
preclude it, either.

The drought picture did indeed worsen just a bit this week, not that it could
get much worse. Well, it could I guess, just not too common in the winter
months. That's exactly what happened, however, with our first D4-Exceptional
drought area introduced into the western Panhandle...the first such D4
designation since Aug. 21, 2018, at the tail end of the last double-dip La Nina
drought.



The D4 designation is reserved for the most intense droughts, generally a 1-in-
50 or 1-in-100 year event. Just so happens that they've been occurring out that
way more often than that, but at just 2% of the state, it is a harbinger of
things to come if we don't receive beneficial moisture, especially as we enter
the next couple of months with the rising temperatures of spring. The height of
that 2017-18 drought was May 1, 2018, but we have much more of the state in
drought at the mid-point of winter than we did at this time in January 2018.
Heck, much more in drought that even on that May 1, 2018, date.





Just as these things "typically" (a very dangerous word for Oklahoma weather) go,
western Oklahoma is in much more drought peril than eastern Oklahoma, but
that's not really out of the norm either.

The problem is pretty simple...we need rain. It has now been 145 (146 counting
today) days without at least a quarter-inch of rain in a single day out in
Kenton, and much of the western half of the state faces a run of 70-100
consecutive days.



The winter thus far, which is obviously the driest part of the calendar in
Oklahoma anyway, has been drastically dry out west in particular, and pretty
ugly every where else--especially when you factor in the long run of unusually
warm weather.









The outlook is dim as of now, at least for the next week or so.



The Canadian forecast model holds out little hope for even accumulating an
inch of precipitation across much of the state through Feb. 3.



The CPC precip outlook for later next week shows some hope for the western
Panhandle, however.



Remember, however, that simply shows greatly increased odds of above normal
precip over that period, but that period is one of the driest parts of the year.

(cue Debbie Downer music)

Hey, I don't make the rules, OR the stats!

Some of the forecast models show some decent moisture out that way at that
time, but remember again (wah waaaaaah) that's out there in the fantasy-cast
time frame. But, some hope is better than no hope!

Gary McManus
State Climatologist
Oklahoma Mesonet
Oklahoma Climatological Survey
gmcmanus@mesonet.org