Ticker for September 28, 2022

                
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September 28, 2022 September 28, 2022 September 28, 2022 September 28, 2022


Boring Gekko




GREAT NEWS! The Ticker is up for a Pulitzer Prize. Greg Pulitzer, who runs the
meat counter down to the WalMarts, said he really likes our blog and is willing to
knock 20% off our next pack of boneless pork chops as an award.

"Greed is good," said the villain Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's masterpiece,
"Wall Street." And while that movie has arguably aged pretty well, despite the
gigantic brick-like cell phone technology, the best thing about the movie remains...
Michael Douglas' hair!! Oh sure, you follicular-philistines with all your wild,
wavy locks might focus in on the story of how an ambitious young broker is lured
into the illegal, lucrative world of corporate espionage when he is seduced by the
power, status, and financial wizardry of Gordon Gekko, but  soon discovers the
pursuit of overnight riches comes at a price that's too high to pay.

Sure, you focus on that. BUT THAT HAIR THOUGH! You will never know.

Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, boring. Now listen here, I KNOW BORING!
Not only am I climatologist, whose main job is to be boring, but I'm the
gosh-darned STATE CLIMATOLOGIST! Now here's the deal...boring weather is actually
pretty bad, right? We've been bored out of our skulls since about June 11 when
the prolific rains of April and May (and first 10 days of June) went away,
replaced by MOSTLY dry conditions with long stretches between storm systems,
but lots of unending barely-relieved above normal temperatures. Now normally
that wouldn't be so bad, but it certainly is when it coincides with summer,
because that almost invariably means flash drought.

See, this statewide average temperature trace vs. the long-term average, all
from the Mesonet, is boring.



Very rarely have we had storm systems potent enough to draw us out of our
unusually hot summer weather. And the rainfall, also MOSTLY boring.

Rainfall? Also boring.



No matter how you look at it.



But here's the counterpoint...weather is REALLY exciting in Florida, with
major hurricane Ian bearing down on their western coast, a Cat-4 monster. Just
look how the advisories are pinging for that area.







So there's boring, which can be either good or bad, and then there's exciting,
which can be either good or bad. Then there's BORING, which is really bad for
us, and there's EXCITING, which can be really bad for us.

Get it?

We definitely need some excitement, but there's just none in sight for Oklahoma
looking forward. Oh sure, a storm system is showing up in the forecast models
nearly two weeks out, but that's ridiculous fantasy-cast territory. Until then,
no storms, no rain, no outbreaks of cool fall air, no passing go!





You want excitement? For some of you? Well, winter is peeking its ugly head
down from Canada into the northern reaches of the Plains.



Ugh, winter boring...there's nothing worse.

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