March 12 update
via U.S. Drought Monitor
March 5 maps
via U.S. Drought Monitor
Like folks said a couple weeks ago when I wrote about a
good news drought update, the good news is welcome, but we shouldn’t get too excited yet.
This is another blog entry about improving drought conditions. That's great! This week’s
update maps from the U.S. Drought Monitor show the tan D1 color, which is the lowest drought level. It still covers 100 percent of the state, but it’s the first time since July that 100 percent of the state was covered in D2, the next most severe category (between August and December, D1 covered all but less than one percent, so I’m going to round up).
The breakdown is as follows: 100 percent in D1, 83.16 percent in D2, 56.7 percent in D3 and 9.71 percent in D4. Biggest change from last week was D2, while D3 dropped about 5 percent from last week to this week. However, D4 increased two tenths of one percent this week.
The most notable improvements were in southeast and northwest Oklahoma. The area of at least D1 stretches from Craig and Ottawa counties along the Arkansas border south to Texas.
We’re still reaping the benefits of the rain and snow in February that benefited all of the state. Gary McManus with the Oklahoma Climatological Survey said the statewide average between February 1 and now is 3.78 inches, about 0.61 of an inch above normal.
This month in Tulsa, however, has not been helpful. It may explain why our drought status did not change at all; Tulsa County is still on the border between D2 and D3. We’ve had 0.27 of an inch this month, which is nearly an inch below normal for March. Good news is we’re still above normal for the year. It’s only by 0.07 of an inch above normal and will likely fall below soon, but for now we have a surplus.
And it will take a continuation of steady rainfall to really break this this thing. Our best chance for that is in a wet spring, but it's impossible and misguided to plan on it.
Speaking of rain, we have
a chance of it this weekend.
You may have noticed that it is a beautiful spring day outside right now (I’m told...I’m sitting in a downtown office and can only see slivers of sunshine out the far windows). We have today already recorded the warmest temperatures so far this year at 75 and it’s going to be even better tomorrow, with highs in the 80s. If we reach that tomorrow, it will be the warmest temps since early November.
Be sure to get your fill, because a cold front is on its way and should be here Saturday, dropping temps to the 60s and bringing a chance of rain Saturday night and Sunday. It doesn’t look like it will be
an impressive rain system for Oklahoma, but we’ll take what we can get.
It looks like temperatures will stay in the 60s most of next week, but 70s are possible late next week, when we hit astronomical spring. See ya next time, winter.
-- Jerry Wofford
