News - Blogs - La Nina Dont let the door hit you on the way out

La Nina: Don't let the door hit you on the way out
Published: 2/15/2012 11:33 AM
Last Modified: 2/15/2012 1:50 PM

Elisha Green, of Tulsa, but who grew up in Chicago, clears snow from her windshield, near Country Club Drive and West Edison Street, amidst cold and snowy conditions in Owen Park, on Monday, Feb. 13, 2012. "Look at the streets. They are clear," she said. "I don't know why they cancelled school today. This wouldn't happen in Chicago." CORY YOUNG/Tulsa World

I don’t even know what’s happening anymore, folks.

Two weeks ago, it was near 70 degrees. Three days ago, it was the coldest temperature of the season (16 degrees.)

On Monday, it snowed. Today, it was near 50 degrees with thundershowers in the morning.

If you’re afraid of change, you must be cowering in a closet, wrapped in blankets—then throwing them off—and sobbing.

Last week, I said I might owe the groundhog an apology for the bologna about a longer winter. That was when the snowstorm was looking a little more substantial and temperatures were forecast to hit 12.

Well, a weekend is not six weeks. You’re still a cheat and a liar, you groundhog.

Anyway… I have a surprise for everyone! It’s good news!

La Nina is starting to weaken! That’s right, that cool pool in the Pacific Ocean is starting to trend toward normalization.

As we’ve said before, La Nina is the cooling of waters in the Pacific that, remarkably and through the wonders of physics, affects weather across the globe.

The NWS Climate Prediction Center’s latest La Nina advisory: “La Niña is likely to transition to ENSO (El Nino/Southern Oscillation)-neutral conditions during March-May 2012.”

WOO HOO!!! WE DID IT!!! CUE THE CONFETTI!!!

La Nina has been affecting our weather since about mid-2010. It dissipated a year ago before ramping up again in the late spring/early summer.

In the southern United States, La Nina makes our weather warmer and drier. Hence: record heat and devastating drought.

The waters will start to warm up between now and May. But, it could still affect our weather through then. The most recent climate outlooks from the Climate Prediction Center are in, and it doesn’t look awful, for a change.

The rest of this month could actually be kind of normal, if not even on the cold side. The longer outlook from CPC is a month old now, but it still calls for above average temperatures, but equal chances of normal precipitation in the eastern side of Oklahoma and slightly drier in western Okla.

With that somewhat cheery outlook, it’d say all of those afflicted with cainotophobia (look it up) who have suffered through the years of abnormalities, the reign of the average is on the horizon.

--Jerry Wofford
(Oh, and also: You should hop on over to Facebook and like me. It'd be awful sweet of you.

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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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