News - Blogs - Despite rain drought continues and spreads

Despite rain, drought continues and spreads
Published: 9/20/2012 11:19 AM
Last Modified: 9/20/2012 11:19 AM

The end of last week was one of those great fall weekends. It was cool, cloudy, damp with some nice rainfall. It was a great day for tailgating and screaming for your football team or curling up on the couch with a book and cup of weak tea, whichever is your thing.

And as has been WIDELY reported here and elsewhere in the state, to the point of exhaustion, there’s a drought on. Rain should help with that, right? Well, yes. And it did! But it’s like fighting a wildfire with a garden hose at this point.

Here is the latest map from the U.S. Drought Monitor, keeper of things dry.

Oklahoma got worse?! I know! I saw that too! The exceptional drought category spread further west in the Panhandle and into central Oklahoma and retreated from areas in far northeast Oklahoma and along the western boarder with Texas.

This week, 42 percent of the state is in the most severe drought category, up from 39.6 percent last week. OK, so that’s not much at all. But it’s in the wrong direction.

Nationally, there was marginal improvement in parts of Arkansas and Kansas, but the worst of the drought is still hanging on in Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Looking ahead, there isn’t much to suggest drastic changes.

In the immediate forecast, there is a slight chance of rain for the Tulsa area after 1 a.m. tonight. And that’s it. That’s the only chance of rain in the next week or so.

Looking out further, eastern Oklahoma is in the area the Climate Prediction Center says will see below average rainfall over the next two weeks (though temperatures are also forecast to be below normal, which I’m OK with).

Looking further down the line, the latest long-term forecasts from the CPC came in today, and it’s kind of…meh. In both the one month and three month outlooks, Oklahoma is in the area calling for equal chances for above or below normal precipitation. So, they are saying that there is just a good of a chance that Oklahoma will be above as there is they will be below normal. So, meh. At least it’s not above normal?

Temperature-wise, the long-term outlooks are less ambiguous, with Oklahoma in the area forecast to have above normal temps.

And that's above normal for October and November, which is still cool if you compare fall to summer. And with the official start of fall a day away, tolerable weather is getting closer and closer.

--Jerry Wofford

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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.

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