News - Blogs - Tulsas cold temperatures How they compare to alltime records

Tulsa's cold temperatures: How they compare to all-time records
Published: 11/28/2011 12:40 PM
Last Modified: 11/28/2011 12:40 PM

Brr, it's cold in here. There must be some Bedlam in the atmosphere! That's Stillwater, site of Saturday's OU-OSU football game, with the state-low 17 degrees for this morning. Map provided the Oklahoma Mesonet.

Tulsa has recorded a large amount of weather records this year, so naturally, when the weather makes a sharp turn for anything, the first question is: "Was it a record?"

Tip: Instead of assuming that there was a record, assume that there wasn't from here on out this year.

Granted, we're setting milestones of sorts, but once again, NOT records. Monday's low of 23 degrees, for example, was a low for this month... but only this month, and not every November in Tulsa history. THIS month. Here are other low temperature milestones from this year, compared with the all-time low temperature records:

November 2011: 23 degrees (today)
November all-time: 10 degrees (Nov. 29, 1976)

October 2011: 30 degrees (Oct. 20)
October all-time: 15 degrees (Oct. 30, 1917)

September 2011: 47 degrees (Sept. 26)
September all-time: 35 degrees (Sept. 27, 1942 and Sept. 30, 1984)

August 2011: 62 degrees (Aug. 22)
August all-time: 48 degrees (Aug. 31, 1915)

July 2011: 72 degrees (July 5)
July all-time: 51 degrees (July 31, 1971)

June 2011: 63 degrees (June 22)
June all-time: 49 degrees (June 2, 1907, June 4, 1954 and June 5, 1919)

May 2011: 38 degrees (May 3)
May all-time: 32 degrees (May 1, 1909 and May 2, 1909)

April 2011: 36 degrees (April 5)
April all-time: 22 degrees (April 2, 1936, April 5, 1920 and April 13, 1957)

March 2011: 24 degrees (March 6)
March all-time: Minus-3 degrees (March 12, 1948)

February 2011: Minus-12 degrees (Feb. 10)
February all-time: Minus-15 degrees (Feb. 13, 1905)

January 2011: 7 degrees (Jan. 12)
January all-time: Minus-16 degrees (Jan. 22, 1930)

All of these numbers are courtesy of the National Weather Service.

This, of course, does not mean we're not setting low temperature records this year. It just means that overall and monthly records are not getting broken in 2011. Some of these low temps set daily records (for example, our minus-12 chill on Feb. 10 was the all-time lowest ever recorded on Feb. 10).

And of course, these are certainly temperatures to take note of. Today's 23-degree-low (I should probably stress that the temperature is preliminary and recorded at the Tulsa International Airport) is the coldest temperature we have had in Tulsa since February.

Since February! That was a long time ago.

--Althea Peterson

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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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