Ticker for March 23, 2022

                
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March 23, 2022     March 23, 2022     March 23, 2022     March 23, 2022


Ughhh




"Don't go away mad. Just go away." That's actually a line from "Heartbreak Ridge"
uttered NOT by Clint Eastwood but by Mario Van Peebles to Moses Gunn, the
sniveling staff sergeant. That's okay. Clint won't mind. I hope.

Hey, speaking of sniffling (work with me...what's a "ffling" amongst friends?),
did you notice that winter just won't go away? Yes, on top of all the tornadoes
that we've seen across the South the last couple of days--including the three
confirmed tornadoes that struck in Love, Marshall, and Johnston counties here
in Oklahoma--we also had snow on the back end of the storm system (as I've said
before, we all know just how painful snow on the back end can be). There was a
blizzard warning for the Panhandle, but most of the heavy snow fell farther
down into the Texas Panhandle. In my opinion, that's a pretty darned good place
for it!



There's no way I'm gonna say that's the last snowfall Oklahoma sees this season.
That's a sure fire way to ask for a blizzard at the end of March. Remember back in
2009 when 26 inches of snow fell in Woodward and Freedom from March 27-28?
That was the a record 24-hour snowfall total for Oklahoma for a couple of years
before Spavinaw beat it with 27 inches back in February 2011 (ugh, a month that
should go down in infamy). So yes, you get some cold air and a vigorous storm
system down here in our neck of the woods and bad winter things can happen even
well into spring. However, if it WAS our last this season, here is how that
season has ended up. I'd say just enough snow to satisfy without being
ridiculous like last year's totals.



I don't think I can jinx our lovely weather ahead, however. That's pretty much
locked in. We haven't seen any 90s in the state since way back on Nov. 16, 2021.
We came darned close in December, but those summertime temps are long overdue.

(Brief pause for cursing from some of you).

It does look like we'll be close again come Sunday or maybe Monday. I'm betting
we finally eclipse the 90 mark somewhere in the state. Here's looking at you,
Altus.





Back to those tornadoes. We are off to a rather conspicuous start. I don't know
if "conspicuous" is even a word, but removing the "in" from in front of it
seemed appropriate. Might need to add an "in" in front of appropriate, actually,
but we'll go with conspicuous. Three doesn't seem like a lot for March thus
far, but it seems like a million if you're the one affected by the damage. And
I'll remind you that in our record year of 149 tornadoes back in 2019,
we didn't see our first twister until April 17. I'll say that these three
confirmed thus far don't portend either a horrible tornado season or a benign
tornado season (already non-benign if you ask me), but we should always EXPECT
a pretty bad severe weather season in order to stay properly prepared.

Now when it comes to tornadoes, I'll change the quote to "Go away mad, we don't
care. Just go away!"

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