Ticker for July 15, 2026

                
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July 15, 2026      July 15, 2026      July 15, 2026      July 15, 2026


Drought about




Hey, did you hear about this (say in Johnny Carson voice...better yet, say in
Dana-Carvey-doing-Johnny-Carson's-voice voice)? Apparently, Taco Bell removed a
lot of their ingredients because they're worried about the bathroom blowout
outbreak spreading across the country.

I don't even need to write the jokes anymore!

Speaking of jokes, a drought, sporadic rains, and summer walk into a bar...well,
we'll end that one there. But I sometimes get questions about "why do you still
have my county in D2 (or D3 or D4) drought when it's been raining?"

Or some variation of the above. Well, it's because we humans (and whatever the
rest of you are) suffer from terminal recency bias. That's why you have really
really boring people track drought, folks that aren't dazzled by the flashy stuff,
like tornadoes and hailstorms and hair. What happened before the last 30 days
matters, too. Like the top map shows, we still have significant deficits across
much of the western half of the state since this time a year ago, and that map,
the stats, and the pct ofnormal map tell the story.





I mean, the rainfall map looks kind of pretty with all those purples and
magentas and grays and whatnot, but still very deceiving.



Some more recent rains have helped the drought in some areas, but we have to
remain mindful of those longer-term deficits. Even where the drought has been
dented and removed over the last month, those underlying deficits dating back to
July 2025 will have an impact should dry weather dominate for an extended period
again. The soils, groundwater, and vegetation has a memory.

Any help coming? Well, not much.



Maybe later? Maybe not.



Maybe later later? Like fall through spring? Come on Super Duper El Nino!



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