Ticker for April 10, 2025

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
April 10, 2025     April 10, 2025     April 10, 2025     April 10, 2025


A good start




Yes, there is still drought in Oklahoma, despite the good-to-great rains across
MOST of the state. There is something you eventually learn whilst tracking drought
in Oklahoma: it sucks...moisture from the ground (SAVED!). But also, you don't
over-react to every rainfall, nor every dry spell. So yes, we have gotten some
great rains over the last 10 days. Some might call it a billion-dollar rain, what
with maybe saving Oklahoma's winter wheat crop that was trending downwards so
rapidly.



Here's the secret though...when tracking drought, you have to have a good memory.
So in the face of, uhhhhhhh...where was I? I can't remember, but here's the deal:
you're not going to eradicate drought with 1.5 inches of rainfall in the face
of going almost 140 consecutive days largely without. Remember (told ya!) this?



And that's why we still have the D2-Severe drought up in far NW OK. Not THAT far,
but kinda far. I know, I'm from there. And we still have substantial longer-term
deficits across much of the NW half of the state as well.







That being said, for all intensive purposes (Okie to English translation: for
all intents and purposes), at any rate, and whatever idiom I can think of (no,
not idiot, but that works too), we did see large-scale relief of drought in
Oklahoma due to those rains.



What do you call the rainfall across Oklahoma over the last 10 days, AND a truck
full of Strawberry Pop-Tarts at the bottom of the ocean?

A good start.

We definitely need more, especially across NW OK. Will we get it? Not much in
the next week or so.



However, our fine friends at NWS Tulsa note things could pick up in the second
half of April.



Let's also recognize that with that rain, some bad stuff come with possibly
could, along with bad grammar.



Some droughts are good, right? Like tornado droughts, feet fungus droughts,
4-way stop droughts, etc.

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