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Drought situation still mostly extreme in Oklahoma

By ALTHEA PETERSON Staff Writer on Feb 7, 2013, at 9:38 AM  Updated on 2/07 at 9:38 AM



WEATHER WORLD

Info on this week's Oklahoma tornadoes (except the one in Moore)

You can find Tulsa World's comprehensive coverage on the Monday EF-5 tornado in the Moore area at this page: tulsaworld.com/2013mooretornado ...

Oklahoma drought update: More improvement, except southwest Oklahoma

While I do these reports weekly with the release of the U.S. Drought Monitor map, here's a reminder for those just tuning ...

A list of Oklahoma's 13 EF-5/F5 tornadoes since 1905

A scene from the Oklahoma-filmed movie 'Twister' to lead-in to this topic:



When the movie's character who doesn't ...

CONTACT THE BLOGGER

Althea Peterson

918-581-8361
Email

Here's where I attempt to create a GIF, bear with me:



The images from the U.S. Drought Monitor this week (Feb. 5) compared with last week (Jan. 29) show both improvements (eastern Oklahoma) and the opposite (Panhandle).

Gary McManus, Oklahoma Climatological Survey associate state climatologist, said that the Panhandle's classification is due to a few factors:

  • From 28 to 116 days since at least 0.25 inch of rainfall.

  • 54 days since Kenton has 0.1 inch in a single day.


  • As such, Panhandle areas that were just D2 for severe drought (orange) are now downgraded to D3 for extreme drought (bright red).

    And now, for our area of the state. Remember that rainfall we got last week?


    This helped some of eastern Oklahoma (but not Tulsa County) get a slight improvement in its drought classification, but 90 percent of the state is still under D3.

    More bad news: We are looking at persistent drought through April, as shown in this map:


    Ending on some good news: We have rain chances -- 80 percent ones -- forecast for Tulsa today and this weekend. Here's a map of the 7-day rain outlooks for everyone:


    As always, you can check your local forecast courtesy of the National Weather Service at tulsaworld.com/weather.

    --Althea Peterson
    WEATHER WORLD

    Info on this week's Oklahoma tornadoes (except the one in Moore)

    You can find Tulsa World's comprehensive coverage on the Monday EF-5 tornado in the Moore area at this page: tulsaworld.com/2013mooretornado ...

    Oklahoma drought update: More improvement, except southwest Oklahoma

    While I do these reports weekly with the release of the U.S. Drought Monitor map, here's a reminder for those just tuning ...

    A list of Oklahoma's 13 EF-5/F5 tornadoes since 1905

    A scene from the Oklahoma-filmed movie 'Twister' to lead-in to this topic:



    When the movie's character who doesn't ...

    CONTACT THE BLOGGER

    Althea Peterson

    918-581-8361
    Email

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    NEWS FEED

    105 Comments

    Graduation

    5 days ago