Ticker for August 11, 2022

                
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August 11, 2022    August 11, 2022    August 11, 2022    August 11, 2022


Fall ahead




What, you want all the dire drought statistics, or you want a little hope for
next week? Even if it's for just a day or two? Because I have enough depressing
drought maps and rainfall data to send you back to February 2021.

THAT was depressing!

I'm not really sold completely on a widescale pattern change, either. That's how
brutal summers and droughts work, you know. Lots of hope but little change.
Persistence, they call it. I can imagine we will get some taste of cooler air
spilling in from the northeast, and also a cold front or two that will trigger
some rain, but for the long-term?

Well danged if I didn't go and try and depress you anyway. The maps I looked at
were depressing, though. Here's one that looks a little better...next Thursday's
temperatures at 4pm.



That's just one model 8 days out, but it's nice to look at. At least nicer than
this!





Those 4-class degradations over the last 8 weeks are more solid proof of flash
drought than I can come up with. We're getting folks into D3 drought as fast
as the drought index values will allow, and these will expand once again next
week. The 49% of the state in at least Extreme (D3) drought is the highest
we've seen since March 15, and the 92% of the state in at least Severe (D2)
drought is the highest since...March 5, 2013?



WOW! Now I'm really depressed! We definitely don't want to be hanging out with
the 2010-15 drought, but here we are...and most of this is due to the last 2
months (as we showed yesterday). But this drought, for some at least, goes back
to just about a year ago. If we look at the 365-day stats, they're just as bad
as the 2-month stuff.







Those are really loathsome looking maps, and they'll get worse before they
get better...as will the heat and drought. But then we start to see next week's
hope, with some rain starting to be painted on the 7-day precip forecast.



But dang, Goodwell has only had 7.3 inches of rain in the last 365 days! Hollis
is double that and they're looking beyond pitiful. I'm not really sure I'm doing
much in the hope department. I feel like a guy holding a can of gasoline trying
to fight a fire. If we can just stay in NW flow and get more cold fronts, maybe
we can do a bit more damage to the drought. Like I said though, it's gonna be
mostly hot and dry through next Tuesday-ish.



So let's wait until next week and see what we get. I think we can mostly agree
that this week's front was something of a disappointment. Did it even get much
cooler, with the heat index still above 100 most of the time?

Do better, Mother Nature.

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