News - Blogs - Rains improve drought conditions but were still on the edge

Rains improve drought conditions, but we're still on the edge
Published: 6/15/2012 6:02 PM
Last Modified: 6/15/2012 6:02 PM

The was the rainfall total for June 15 from midnight to 5:55 p.m., according to the Oklahoma Mesonet. Nice little shower!

The deluge earlier this month was exciting. For a second, I though that maybe the near-record parched May was just a fluke and June was going to bring us more of that wonderful precipitation we received in March and April.

I mean, it rained the first four days of the month in Tulsa, including 3.32 inches that fell June 4.

Well, LOLJK. It turns out that was the fluke. It was about a week and a half until we had any rain again, and that was just 0.18 inches at TIA (and 0.4 inches at Riverside).

The theme this month again has been hot and dry. And just after we had vanquished that pesky drought that plagued us last year in eastern Oklahoma, it had started to creep back in.

Much of the state was in the “abnormally dry” category from the U.S. Drought Monitor, the cusp of a drought. Some places in southeast Oklahoma had drought classification, while drought in parts of western Oklahoma, especially the panhandle, persisted.

The most recent drought map, released Thursday, showed some improvement in southern Oklahoma from rains that tracked across western and central Oklahoma and general improvement overall. And if it didn’t improve, it at least didn’t get worse.

Will things improve for the next drought map? Maybe. We did get rain here early Friday morning, but it wasn’t much. We’re still way ahead of the average for the month, but Tulsa is down about 2 inches for the year, which is much better than where we were this time last year. There are also chances of rain in the forecast for the coming days, albeit slight chances.

We’re about to transition into those summer months that are notoriously dry and brutally hot. So whatever rain we get now will be what help us through till fall. If I were a betting man, I’d say that drought map could get a little more colorful before we get to the “…ber” months.

--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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