Last year was one for the record books. Just about every area that keeps track of such things had either a broken record or a threatened one.
That was thanks in large part to our massive snowfall last year. We talked about our experiences with the blizzard earlier (read that entry
here). Now we're going to look back at actually how widely we were affected.
There are 28 days in February. Last year, there were 18 daily records set in Tulsa, including snowfall (duh), warm and cold high and low records and rainfall.
And here is this collection of records just in Tulsa:
- Record cold season snowfall of 26.1 inches. Previous record 25.6 inches in 1923-24.
- Record February snowfall of 22.5 inches. Previous record 10.5 inches in February 2003.
- Record Monthly snowfall (any month) of 22.5 inches. Previous record 19.7 inches in March 1924.
- Record 24-hour snowfall of 14 inches set on 01/31-02/01/2011. Previous record 12.9 inches on March 8-9, 1994.
- Record Maximum Storm Total Snowfall of 14 inches set on 01/31-02/01/2011. Previous record 12.9 inches on March 8-9, 1994.
- Record Maximum snowfall depth of 14 inches set on 2/02/2011. Previous record 11 inches January 7-8, 1988.
- Record Calendar Snowfall for Any Day of 13.2 inches set on 2/01/2011. Previous record 12.1 inches on March 8, 1994.
- 2011 tied with 1924 as the 2nd snowiest year on record with 26.1 inches. Current record is 29.6 inches in 1958.
Other records broken in Oklahoma in include the 27 inches of new snow that fell in Spavinaw on Feb. 8-9 and the coldest temperature ever recorded in the state: minus 31 degrees at the Oklahoma Mesonet station in Nowata.
After we dug out last year, these are some of the things we were able to do and see out in the frozen wasteland known as Tulsa.
This is a Tulsa city bus stranded in the middle of Boulder Avenue just south of 15th Street. You can see the center line faintly in the bottom part of the photo. At night, it was apocalyptic. -JW
This is my puppydog, Wilkes. The snow was taller than she was, which made for an interesting potty experience (for her....not for me. And, she's not pottying in that photo there. That would be obscene). -JW
This was something I had never seen before. A sun pillar is faintly visible in the center of the photograph. It's a horizontal beam of light that is made when the sun reflects off ice crystals in the atmosphere. It was really something to see in person. -JW
I used to build snowmen whenever we had a snow day from school back in Wisconsin, once or twice a year on average, more if we kids were lucky. I didn't get any "snow days" with work, so I had to wait until the weekend to build this snowman, which happened to coincide with the magical postseason run of my beloved Green Bay Packers. Some questioned why I would put a Brett Favre jersey on my Packer snowman. I reasoned that there was no way I was letting my Aaron Rodgers jersey be outside in the dirty snow, subject to vandalism or theft. -AP
This was from Feb. 1 itself. Our cat Brink loves looking out the window at the birds, which sometimes spooks them away from the window feeder. However, birds were desperate for food when the temperatures took such a plunge and the snow appeared. Heating vents were Brink's second-favorite places to sit around the house that winter. -AP
--Althea Peterson and Jerry Wofford
