Ticker for April 14, 2022

                
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April 14, 2022 April 14, 2022 April 14, 2022 April 14, 2022


The Freezing




No need to bother watching any horror films this morning, because you're in one!
We made mention of this possible freeze last week and sure enough, it showed up.
As I've noted many times, those freezing temperatures, and I mean REALLY COLD,
manage to slide farther south than expected into the dry air of southwest OK.
Check out Mangum there with a low of 24 degrees, just a day removed from
reaching 98 degrees back on the 12th, about 36 hours ago!



Is this the last freeze? Well, for far northern OK and especially the Panhandle,
probably not. All I know (which is admittedly, very little), is that Friday is
looking really nice right now, not gonna lie.



Now everybody's favorite. You know it, you love it...WIND! in advance of
tomorrow's cold front the winds will kick back up from the south today and again
tomorrow. Watch for gusts back up into the 30-40 mph range out west to create yet
another couple of days of fire danger. Have you noticed how windy it has been?
Are ya living in a cave? Oh really! Well, do you have an extra room in there?

We went back and checked out the statewide average maximum wind speeds using
the Mesonet's Long-Term Average graphing tool (found here)

http://www.mesonet.org/index.php/weather/category/past_data_files

trying to see if this recent period ranked anywhere on the windiest side, at
least for the period 2006-2022. Looking at 7-day averages, we found that (drum
roll please!) the 7-day period ending on April 11, 2022, ranked as theeeeeeeee

SECOND windiest 7-day period since 2006 at 26.4 mph. Interestingly (or boringly,
if'n you're not into wind statistics), the 7-day periods ending in April 10
and April 12 of this year captured third and fourth place at 26.2 and 26.1 mph,
respectively. And now, the big reveal of the winner...April 5, 2009, at 26.6
mph! Looking back at the weather from that time in our monthly summary, it
appears there were widespread 60 mph winds at times associated with a couple of
cold fronts, and and overall period of windy conditions. Those two periods
dominated the top-10, with June 8 and 9, 2008, thrown in there, as well as
April 29, 2014.

-***-
7-day period (ending on) Statewide Avg. WMAX
April 5, 2009 26.6 mph
April 11, 2022 26.4 mph
April 10, 2022 26.2 mph
April 12, 2022 26.1 mph
April 6, 2009 26.1 mph
April 9, 2022 26.0 mph
June 8, 2008 25.9 mph
April 29, 2014 25.8 mph
June 9, 2008 25.8 mph
April 7, 2009 25.6 mph
-****-

Obviously quite the April bias there. I suspect that June 2008 was thrown in
because of a bit of storminess that produced widespread 70-80 mph winds. You can
see that we're just exiting our windiest part of the year, at least according
to the statewide maximum wind (black line), and just how high above we've been
really since early March.



And now, for today's Miner News, watch those canaries, folks, or you could be
taking the long dirt nap.

Oh, you don't come here for news about mining? Well, I don't want it either but
it keeps showing up in my e-mail inbox, so welcome to my world. Back to weather,
and this is major news. The drought continues to shrink across eastern Oklahoma,
but unfortunately, intensify across western OK.





With several rain chances coming up, you'd have to hope for more relief. Maybe
again in eastern OK, but still not much of that hope showing up for western
OK.



But it is spring (despite the WINTER this morning) and hope "springs" eternal.
Maybe some better news coming up next week?



And now, back to the data mines.

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

April 14 in Mesonet History

Record Value Station Year
Maximum Temperature 97°F HOOK 2003
Minimum Temperature 16°F EVAX 2022
Maximum Rainfall 3.12″ GUTH 2012

Mesonet records begin in 1994.

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