News - Blogs - Surprise It DOES rain in Oklahoma

Surprise! It DOES rain in Oklahoma
Published: 7/24/2011 6:27 PM
Last Modified: 7/24/2011 8:41 PM

Doesn't that look refreshing? Unfortunately, it wasn't here... Juventus FC's Michele Pazienza reacts as rain falls in the first half of soccer game action against Sporting Clube de Portugal in the Herbalife World Football Challenge in Toronto Saturday. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darren Calabrese)

I was driving to the office this afternoon and saw ominous clouds on the horizon and heard a loud clap of thunder. RAIN! It had been way too long since I’ve seen such a beautiful sight.

Very scattered showers raced across the metro and northeast Oklahoma Sunday. They were mostly small showers and thunderstorms, save for a couple of small severe thunderstorm warnings for some areas east and south of Tulsa.

But, there was definitely rain in at least parts of the city.

Whether the official record will reflect that or not is a different story. The National Weather Service’s official recording station at Tulsa International Airport did not officially record any rain as the showers came through. Neither did the Jones Jr. Riverside Airport, though the weather observation states “thunderstorm.”

The Oklahoma Mesonet has some more widespread data. The Bixby recording station received 0.56 inches (!) as of 6 p.m. The winner on Sunday was Freedom, in Woods County, with 0.73 inches of rain.

The showers that did occur in the area were small, popped up quickly and dissipated nearly as quickly.

Unfortunately, the showers were too small and too sporadic to make any kind of dent on the worsening drought, which will take more than some scattered storms to erase.

On the plus side, cloud cover and rainfall did ease temperatures some. At Tulsa International, the temperature dropped from 107 to 98 in an hour. At Jones Riverside, the decrease was more drastic: from 106 to 92 in an hour.

The break didn’t last long, however. Temperatures were back above 100 shortly after.

While Sunday was a nice reminder that every now and then, it does, in fact, rain in Oklahoma, we’re going to need a lot more before drought conditions can improve.

And if you did get any rain, I hope you got out to frolic in it. The next chance you have to do that could be many, many days away.

--Jerry Wofford

P.S. Maybe it worked?

Update 8:30 p.m.
Some of the storms that blew through the area were stronger than they appeared. Out in Mayes County, one woman was injured and several barns and houses were heavily damaged by strong downbursts, the Mayes County emergency management director said. Read the story here.

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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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