By WEATHER WORLD on Sep 12, 2011, at 7:00 AM Updated on 9/11 at 9:29 PM
WEATHER WORLD
At the cookout I went to Sunday evening, it was tank top, cutoff jean shorts and flip flops. My friend said to me, “you look ...
This blog was inspired by some of our early morning commenters on the weather forecast story .
Yes, as one of you pointed ...
The deluge earlier this month was exciting. For a second, I though that maybe the near-record parched May was just a fluke ...
No, this map does not show how many Oklahoma football fans wear crimson and how many wear orange. The darkest red areas are classified for exceptional drought, the bright red areas are extreme drought, and orange areas are severe drought.
With the way the weather is going this year, nothing should surprise me about the atypical-but-typical-for-this-year weather we've been experiencing in Tulsa.
BUT... I just had to go and see which years our September was on track, until Saturday's trace amounts of rain recorded.
Those years are 1888 and 1897, the only years Tulsa's September has not even had a trace amount of rain recorded.
Wasn't that before Oklahoma was a state? Wasn't that before the Dust Bowl? Wasn't that more than 100 years ago?! Those questions immediately enter my mind, but since this first and foremost a weather blog, I would like to give more drought-specific info, courtesy of Gary McManus, associate state climatologist with the Oklahoma Climatological Survey:
Q: Most of the state is currently classified by the U.S. Drought Monitor as D4 for exceptional drought. Any hope of that changing in the near future?McManus: There is not much showing up just yet for the next week or so, but weather patterns can change pretty quickly in the Southern Plains.Q: Most of Tulsa County is D3 (for extreme drought) or D2 (for severe drought) at this point, with the western tip near the D4 area. Is the county at risk of entering the D4 area within the next week? Within the next month?McManus: It might take a bit of time, and lack of rainfall of course, for those conditions to creep back to the northeast. If we should get an extended period of heat, however, that will hasten its progress. Probably safe for the next couple of weeks.Q: Is there anything that can cause a drought classification to lower besides rainfall? This includes lower temperatures, less wind, hail, snow, tornadoes or other severe weather, etc.McManus: Rainfall is the only thing that will lower a drought classification. Once the moisture has been depleted from the soils and reservoirs, those conditions won't improve without precipitation. The intensification and spread of drought can slow without rainfall, however.Q: Are the cooler temperatures any benefit at all to Oklahoma's current drought situation, or will anything short of more rain really help the situation?McManus: Those cooler temperatures help to reduce the drought's impacts by reducing the rate of evaporation from soils and reservoirs. Rain is need desperately, however.Q: La Niña's been blamed a lot for our drought woes. What is La Niña and why is it often called the culprit?McManus: La Niña is a cooling of the waters in the equatorial pacific that can change weather patterns across the globe. One of the impacts for the U.S. is drier and warmer than normal weather in the southern third of the country. That's the reason its the primary culprit in our current drought cycle.We are no longer on track to meet 1888 and 1897. Instead, we are tied with 1948, which had trace amounts for the entire month of September.
Still, it's 2011. Remember this year. Oklahomans might be talking about it decades, or even a century later.
--Althea Peterson
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