Ticker for March 22, 2022

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
March 22, 2022     March 22, 2022     March 22, 2022     March 22, 2022


Boom!




And just like that, we reset a lot of our dire moisture fortunes across the state.





March 21-22 rain totals above 2"
--------------------------------
Lane           2.93     Wynona             2.15
Spencer        2.65     Tahlihina          2.14
Foraker        2.35     Broken Bow         2.13
Hugo           2.34     Cookson            2.09
Idabel         2.34     Norman             2.04
Clayton        2.26     Pawnee             2.02
Washington     2.25     Yukon              2.01
Webbers Falls  2.25
OKC East       2.21

Oh, the map is still ugly for some folks...a half-inch of rain and Buscemi are
both acquired tastes. But it's certainly better than nothing, even for those folks
in far southwestern OK and the western Panhandle. Now this is but one storm, but
we combine that with the rainfall at the end of last week and we have a pretty
decent looking set of 30-day rainfall maps (although if you are in the western
Panhandle or SW OK, they are still fairly obscene).







Go out a bit further, like to the beginning of the year, and you can see that
we are still dealing with deficits statewide for the most part. And of course
go back to early last fall and the deficits become even wider, which is why
this storm was a drought "helper" and not a drought "ender."

Calendar year
-------------





Water year
----------





Regardless of the longer term, yesterday's storm was pretty darned good for
most folks. Record rainfall amounts for March 21 were set at both OKC (1.61")
and Lawton (1.72"), and no doubt many other locations as well. But it's not
enough to say we're out of the woods just yet. Heck, I don't even know that you
can even HAVE woods or forests or even trees with as little rainfall as we've
had the last 9 months. But this is a good start FOR MOST.

We see you SW OK and western Panhandle.

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