Ticker for February 2, 2024

                
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February 2, 2024   February 2, 2024   February 2, 2024   February 2, 2024


Step aside rodent!




I mean, how desperate do you have to be to rely on a rodent seeing its shadow to
tell you if you're gonna have spring or winter? Sure, it's better than I could do,
but why a rodent when you have a nice old Sasquatch (English to Okie translation:
Bigfoot) that can help you out?

Exactly, so we now go to our old friend Poteau Pete (we would have tried Idabel
Isaac but there was an incident about 6 years ago...never mind) aaaaandddd...HE
DOESN'T SEE HIS SHADOW! Of course, that means spring arrives early, and arrived
early it already did.



We've had around 15-16 days of winter, and frankly, that's enough. And don't call
me Frank OR Shirley. This week has been, well, spring, no? And that continues
today, and shirley....errrr, frankly, through the next week or so. Won't be AS
warm as this week, but still above normal. Above normal for February is basically
March, which starts climatological spring. March is really just April, you know.
And if we're above normal in February, which is March which is really just April,
might as well call it May.

May we try any harder to avoid more winter?





In truth, because I don't want to continue lying to myself, it will get cold
again. Probably in March. Well don't blame me for the craziness of Oklahoma's
weather! Take a look at the first half of the 2023-24 cool season, when the
worst winter weather we had was in October!



Anyway, severe weather season is upon us. It started on Jan. 1 and will finally
end right around midnight on Dec. 31. Watch out for big storms tonight,
especially across western OK. Nothing too big or bad, but we haven't had much
in the way of severe weather lately so it's gonna be a bit of a change to go
from winter mode to spring severe weather mode. Get used to this phrase because
we'll be using it a lot in the next few months: the tornado threat is low, but
not zero.









As per usual, tune in to your local NWS office and favorite media source to
stay up with the latest weather forecasts (which will change) and alerts.

Do NOT ask Poteau Pete. His forecast: PAIN.

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