Ticker for February 16, 2026

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
February 16, 2026  February 16, 2026  February 16, 2026  February 16, 2026


Fire time's here




I know the weather is gonna be kind of nasty, in a late-winter fire danger kind of
way, but from the "it could always be worse" department, remember 5 years ago?



Yeah, it could. Not only that, but what if birds were human size? That would be
worse. And what if the only restaurant was Taco Bell? Bad. What if toilet paper
was all 1-ply? Terrible.

But don't sell tomorrow short. Today will be no picnic, but at least it will be
warm. Well, eventually. Might even see some record highs out west, and we
definitely will tomorrow over a bigger part of the state. Record high Tmins, too.
The spring-like temps will continue until Friday, when we cool back down to more
seasonable territory.









Now you take all that warmth this time of year, add low humidity and dead/dormant
vegetation, and you're gonna have fire danger. Today will be bad, but tomorrow
will be dangerous.









tomorrow especially will be one of those days the Dept. of Tourism tries to
sweep under the rug, along with all the dust that is gonna blow in.



The good news is we reset a lot of this map.





But we still need a LOT more.





Don't worry, rain's coming. Oh, no, not anytime soon. But it's coming.

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