Ticker for January 21, 2025

                
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January 21, 2025   January 21, 2025   January 21, 2025   January 21, 2025


February 2021 for a day




Quick summary on today's cold weather...deets below!
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* Lowest temperature ever recorded on a Jan. 21: -17 degrees, Beaver
* Lowest temperature recorded in OK since Feb. 16, 2021: -17 degrees, Beaver
* Lowest wind chill since Dec. 22, 2022: -33 degrees at Beaver and Hooker
* Lowest statewide average low temperature: -6.7 degrees
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Years ago (15 to be sorta exact), the leadership at OCS was looking for somebody
to be the new State Climatologist. Somebody BORING enough to track things like
cold weather records...and drought.

I knew I was a shoo-in (and I'd get a shoe-in my behind if I ever tried to be
exciting).

Hey now, it's my JOB to keep these records! (See, an exclamation point is about
as exciting as I get). And Oklahoma never ceases to amaze me when things look
extra boring, it comes up with another doozy.

Like...the lowest temperature ever recorded on a Jan. 21 in Oklahoma's history,
dating back to the 1880s. The -17 at Beaver this morning eclipsed Alva's -16
degrees from this date in 1984 as the new record lowest temperature. In fact,
several sites from this morning popped up in the top-5:

January 21 lowest temperatures on record (1888-2025)
Year      Location       Low T(F)
2025       Beaver          -17
1984       Alva            -16
2025       Cherokee        -15
2025       Hooker          -15
1984       Pryor           -13

Trust me folks, 1984 is not a year you want to hang out with when it comes to
cold weather. You know, back when cold weather was the norm, NOT the extreme?
That -17 is also the coldest temperature recorded in the state since Nowata
hit -22 degrees back on Feb. 16, 2021.

I don't really need to say it, do I? Another month you don't want to hang out
with when talking about cold weather.

Oh yeah, how about the state as a whole? Well, our statewide average low
temperature of -6.7 degrees (subtract another -0.3 degrees and it'd be REALLY
cold) is the coldest morning since that same Feb. 16 back in 2021 had a
statewide average low of -12.4 degrees.

Brrr indeed.

Let's not forget about the wind chill, right? We hit -33 degrees in both
Hooker and Beaver, which is the lowest such reading since Eva and Hooker did
the same thing back on Dec. 22, 2022. Folks tend to forget about December 2022's
cold weather. Exciting people, mostly.



The difference in that day and this morning is the winds...today's low wind
chills were based more on actual low temperatures in the minus-teens, while Dec.
22, 2022, the temps were hovering around zero but the winds were gusting to
over 55 mph.

Either way, you'll freeze your booty off if'n you linger outside without proper
cold weather gear. Dangerous cold.





Never fear (okay, when it's this cold, it's okay to fear), we'll get back above
freezing this afternoon in a lot of spots, and even up into the 50s later this
week.





Remember, it could always be worse...it could have been -18 ya know.

Gary McManus
State Climatologist
Oklahoma Mesonet
Oklahoma Climate Survey
gmcmanus@ou.edu