Ticker for April 21, 2022

                
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Drought don't hurt me




Hey, I don't want to step on any toes here, Mother Nature, but this really isn't
the way to run a Spring. One sorta biggish rain in a select part of the state
every 30-40 days isn't really doing much to help out drought situation. It seems
to be two steps back, one step forward, 1.5 steps to the side, a hop-ski-and-a-jump
diagonally, and if you're having trouble following that then now you know what
it's like forecasting rain this year.

It's been 236 days since Kenton has seen at least a quarter-inch of rain in a
single day. 236 days! Yes, grammar rules fall by the wayside at times like this
Even punctuation is hard to come by when you go that long without rain Annoying
aint it Well imagine it hasnt rained in 236 days to go along with that! Sorry,
that exclamation point was well needed. And you can see that we now have basically
the entire NW quarter of the state pushing a month without the a quarter-inch. Heck,
let's go to the tenth of an inch map.



Not as impressive (or depressive) looking, but we're talking a tenth of an inch
here. Boise City has gone 192 days without that much falling in a single day.
Are you serious, Clark? 192 days ago I still had 192 hairs on my head, it's been
that long! Just looking at the past 30 days, you can see why the newest Drought
Monitor map has that Extreme (D3) drought expanding once again up into
north central OK.











Keep in mind while these areas are going without rain, they're being pounded
with wind and occasional summer-like temperatures, as our Wahl-Meter Apparel
Comfort Scale we threw up on our Facebook page yesterday showed us, we hit
some records yesterday across the western half of the state.





Looking ahead, our promising storm system that was supposed to bring at least a
decent drink of water across much of the state has shrunk just a bit and pushed
southeast with those heavier amounts.



There are at least some storm chances coming up today across that NW quarter.
Tornado chances are low (but not zero), as are the severe wind and hail
chances. However, it's the rain we want.









Then we'll see similar chances tomorrow and Saturday for some low-end severe
weather marching east (if you don't want severe weather on your low-end, best
stay inside).









So there is at least hope we can reset some of those consecutive days areas on
the maps. Then we can try it all over again 30-45 days from now.

What is rain?
Drought don't hurt me, don't hurt me,
No more.

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