By ALTHEA PETERSON Staff Writer on Feb 7, 2013, at 9:38 AM Updated on 2/07 at 9:38 AM
WEATHER WORLD
It's not a Tulsa urban legend, myth or a running joke: It really does rain every year (since 2008) at downtown's Mayfest.
And ...
There is a lot to digest on the drought front, so I'll try to cover as much ground as I can.
Before showing this week's ...
Bad news this week, Oklahoma: Your drought situation was either unchanged or got worse.
If this comes as a surprise, ...
Here's where I attempt to create a GIF, bear with me:
The images from the U.S. Drought Monitor this week (Feb. 5) compared with last week (Jan. 29) show both improvements (eastern Oklahoma) and the opposite (Panhandle).
Gary McManus, Oklahoma Climatological Survey associate state climatologist, said that the Panhandle's classification is due to a few factors:
From 28 to 116 days since at least 0.25 inch of rainfall.54 days since Kenton has 0.1 inch in a single day.As such, Panhandle areas that were just D2 for severe drought (orange) are now downgraded to D3 for extreme drought (bright red).
And now, for our area of the state. Remember that rainfall we got last week?
This helped some of eastern Oklahoma (but not Tulsa County) get a slight improvement in its drought classification, but 90 percent of the state is still under D3.
More bad news: We are looking at persistent drought through April, as shown in this map:
Ending on some good news: We have rain chances -- 80 percent ones -- forecast for Tulsa today and this weekend. Here's a map of the 7-day rain outlooks for everyone:
As always, you can check your local forecast courtesy of the National Weather Service at
tulsaworld.com/weather.
--Althea Peterson
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