News - Blogs - Coldweather milestones reached but its not winter yet

Cold-weather milestones reached, but it's not winter yet
Published: 11/13/2012 4:11 PM
Last Modified: 11/13/2012 4:11 PM

Days below 32 this cold season, via Oklahoma Mesonet

I don’t think my dog realizes how cold it is when she wants to get up and go outside about 6 a.m. I don’t have fur, so when she wants go outside and it’s 26 degrees, I’m a little chilly and hesitant to come out from the pile of blankets under which I’m huddled.

That was the low temperature we hit Monday morning.

When was the last time we were at or below 26 degrees? Look back to Feb. 12, when it was 16 degrees in Tulsa. You could have had a full pregnancy term between then and now. Mazel tov!

But it’s already been a chilly fall here. October was 1.1 degrees below normal (but November is 2.1 degrees above normal, thanks to a couple days with temps well above normal).

The first hard freeze of the cold season -- when temperatures drop to 28 or below -- occurred Oct. 27, more than two weeks earlier than normal and the earliest since 2000, when Tulsa hit 28 on Oct. 9. To see an earlier hard freeze (Oct. 9 is kind of an outlier…), you have to go back to 1957. In fact, Tulsa has only been at 28 degrees or below in October 12 times going back to 1906.

This morning was below freezing and the forecast for the overnight low is below freezing, so it could be four days in a row of temperatures below freezing, which hasn’t occurred since January.

Last October was above normal and the first hard freeze of last winter wasn’t until Nov. 17.

Areas of northern Oklahoma have been in the lead with freezing temperatures this cool season, even ahead of the icy tundra in the Panhandle (poor Panhandle…). Nowata has seen lows below freezing 13 times this cool season. Bristow has had 12 days with lows below freezing.

The pattern we’ve seen recently has been a cold front about every week that drops temps drastically and they slowly creep up, but not to where they were before another cold front comes in and knocks them further.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center’s latest 10-day and 2-week outlook has all of Oklahoma with high probability of above-average temperatures, though the forecast has temperatures near normal in the National Weather Service forecast. But that normal is highs in the 60s and lows in the upper 30s/low 40s. So, that’s not terrible weather.

Actually, it’s kind of terrible. The terrible part, as we pointed out today, is how dry it is. These cold fronts that drop the temperatures down every week or so have been dry and disappointing.

--Jerry Wofford

Reader Comments

1 Total

Show: Newest First

Learn About Our Comment Policy

Tulsa World Staff Writer Althea Peterson (3 months ago)

"You could have had a full pregnancy term between then and now."

No thank you, that would have involved being pregnant during our hot summer. I planned a winter pregnancy on purpose! :P

1 comments displayed

To post comments on tulsaworld.com, you must be an active Tulsa World print or digital subscriber and signed into your account.

To sign in to your account, go to tulsaworld.com/signin.
To activate your print subscription for unlimited digital access and to post comments, go to tulsaworld.com/activate.
To purchase a subscription, go to tulsaworld.com/subscribe.

Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

Subscribe to this blog

Temperature
High Temp:	(Example: 45)
Low Temp:	(Example: 45)
Temperature Date:	(Example: 1/1/2011)

Precipitation
Total:	(Example: '.01)
Month to date:	(Example: '.01)
Normal month to date:	(Example: '.01)

2/2013	1/2013	12/2012	11/2012	10/2012	9/2012
8/2012	7/2012	6/2012	5/2012	4/2012	3/2012
2/2012	1/2012	12/2011	11/2011	10/2011	9/2011
8/2011	7/2011	6/2011

Your bookmark will appear on your Profile page. Please give it a title, and short description so that visitors to your page will understand where the bookmark leads.
Bookmark Title :

Bookmark Text :