Dress warmly, parade participants: Leila VanDyke, 9, member of the Walt Whitman Baby Hornets, dances along with her dance team, during a parade honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on Monday, Jan. 16, 2011. CORY YOUNG/Tulsa World File
Also dressed warmly: Kimberly Green, from State Farm, jams with colleagues as she participants in the annual parade celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. along Greenwood Avenue, in Tulsa, on Monday, Jan. 21, 2008. CORY YOUNG/Tulsa World File
It's not your imagination: Tulsa's weather does not cooperate with its Martin Luther King Jr. parade day.
January is typically the coldest month in Tulsa during the year, even colder than December. But, why must Tulsa weather take the parade day as a day to have less-nice weather?
Here's a look at MLK parade days since 2007 for tales of cruel twists in weather:
Jan. 15, 2007: Less than a week prior, Tulsa was enjoying highs up to 67 degrees. Then, several days before the parade, Tulsa got rain, so the temperatures dropped to freezing. This continued for several days, with freezing and non-freezing precipitation until the parade was postponed. That meant that 2007's parade was actually held on...
March 31, 2007: A happy ending. 67 degrees and only trace amounts of rain. But, they did have to wait more than two months for the perfect parade weather.
Jan. 21, 2008: January 2008 had several days reach the 70s, including a high of 75 on Jan. 7. However, by parade day, Tulsa's temperatures returned to its normals in the 30s, with a high of 38 and even some rain.
Jan. 19, 2009: Like the year before, optimists might have seen Jan. 3's high of 78 degress and thought surely, this parade day will be different. While temperatures hit a high of 51, temperatures also sank to a freezing 29 degrees.
Jan. 18, 2010: Every list needs and outlier, and in this case, it's 2010. Setting up for doom and gloom early on in January with lows reaching the single digits a week before, with one day even having a high in the teens (19 on Jan. 8), parade day rose to the occasion, with a high of 62 degrees and no rain.
Jan. 17, 2011: There was no reason to be optimistic about the weather this year. Freezing temperatures filled the early weeks of January, then a bit of rain and highs in the 40s happened on parade day, with lows in the 20s.
Jan. 16, 2012: OK, I'll give you one more outlier: A high of 72 and a low of 56. And no rain or snow!
Jan. 21, 2013: Finally, here we are once again on MLK parade day in Tulsa. We've reached the 70s this month, and just had a weekend in the 60s, so what curveball does Mother Nature throw Tulsa for its holiday? Morning temperatures in the 20s, and a forecast high of 42 degrees today.
Well, at least there's no freezing rain like 2007.
Happy MLK Day!
--Althea Peterson
