Ticker for March 3, 2022

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
March 3, 2022      March 3, 2022      March 3, 2022      March 3, 2022


Enjoy it!




That's not ENTIRELY accurate, but if that was my standard, I wouldn't be in the
weather bidness.

BA DUM BUM!

Just a little industry-deprecating humor there. So there are three more days of,
ummmmmmm, fake early spring? Whatever I'm trying to say, which is you just know
Mother Nature is gonna throw another ice or snow storm in there a time or two
as we go through the rest of March. Maybe a giant arctic front or three as well?
So we have three more lovely spring days left before our next cold front. I'd say
that's about cold front #8 or #9 for 2022 thus far. Count 'em. The two doozies
were in February.



Ugh! No more of that, I hope. And this front that's coming later into the weekend
will not be of the arctic variety that we've grown to know and hate this year,
more of the 40s and 50s for highs variety. However, it will be a mostly dry
front for the western Oklahoma (of course...why would we expect anything else!),
and so as the system approaches and those southwesterly winds kick up and dry
things out even more, and we get into those springlike temperatures, wildfire
danger is gonna be a problem. We are in peak fire season, so each system that
approaches will probably bring these types of fire days. First Friday then
Saturday, both days will have some critical fire danger in western OK somewhere,
but there will be high fire danger across nearly the entire state.





And today is no picnic out west, either.



We actually have a red flag fire warning for the Panhandle, at least the
western two counties, for this afternoon into the evening.



Well if we have fire out west, that probably means we'll have storms in the
southeast. Not a high end threat, but a chance of severe storms nonetheless
on Sunday.



There will be a chance of a wintry mix early next week in northern OK as a bit
of the cold air shifts over us, but nothing too bad showing up just yet. Hey,
give it time and we can work up a blizzard out of this mess!

It would probably be best not to celebrate these days through Saturday as much
since we are still in a pretty terrible drought. Yes, despite the recent
moisture. Most of the state remains in deficits after all the snow and ice,
and deficits aren't a good way to fight your way out of drought.







Adding in January doesn't help much either.



So far March has come in like a lamb. The lion is out there waiting somewhere!

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