Ticker for May 27, 2022

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
May 27, 2022       May 27, 2022       May 27, 2022       May 27, 2022


Kermie




That map is simple: Take out much more drastic drought situation from a couple
of weeks ago where most of the western third of the state's (and other areas
scattered about) vegetation was a solid yellow, add a good dollop of rain and
May sunshine, and you get a much nicer relative greenness map from our OK-FIRE
archives. You can see those river valleys and surrounding ares across the NW
quarter of the state exploded in greenness over the last couple of weeks, and
over parts of NE OK as well. And now that the heat is back, we should see even
more explosive green up (and we all know just how painful AND messy that can
be) over the next couple of weeks.

I know many (okay, maybe one) of you are awaiting my review of "Top Gun: Maverick."
While I'm no Siskel, nor am I Ebert (because if I was, I'd be hard to stop!), I'd
give the movie an 11 out of 10, which is about where our weather will be this
holiday weekend. The heat is back, baby! And so is the wind. That's okay, because
that will help keep those mosquitos grounded. Also back is GREEN, and that's
important because without that green up we've seen over the last few weeks,
we'd be seeing some pretty drastic fire danger scenarios.



So with near record-breaking temperatures across western OK, and winds gusting
35-45 mph, the only thing saving us is the green, really. And for those parts of
the western Panhandle still largely devoid of vegetation, that fire danger
is still up into the "elevated" category.

The heat will be real this weekend, and it will be sticky across eastern OK
and blast-furnace style across western OK.









For those of you dreading that, have you thought of moving? Okay, that's a bit
drastic. It's Oklahoma. It'll change.



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