Agricultural News
Rainfall Totals Updated for the Week- and the Latest Drought Monitor Graphics- Take a Look
Fri, 31 May 2013 03:49:04 CDT
Active weather since the beginning of the week has brought prodigious amounts of rain to central and eastern Oklahoma as evidenced by the map above- updated at 4 AM Friday morning. Associate State Climatologist Gary McManus says unfortunately, Western Oklahoma has remained relatively dry all week long.
The Mesonet rainfall maps show Red Rock in Noble County had more than 5 inches of rainfall from training thunderstorms Wednesday. Skiatook- north of Tulsa, has now totaled almost six inches of rainfall this week with storms Thursday evening bringing the totals for that Mesonet site above that of Red Rock.
On Tuesday-Wednesday, an area from Kingfisher County through Nowata County got blasted by widespread 3-5 inch amounts. There was also obviously a pretty potent storm that traveled from Beckham County through Kay County, dumping 1-2 inches in general, with 3.21 inches measured at the Butler Mesonet site. And there was another area of storms that went from Love County in the south to Cherokee County in the northeast, dropping 1-3 inches along the way, with localized heavier amounts.
The southern track on Thursday dumped heavier rains on Pauls Valley(2.89 inches of rain in the past 24 hours as of Friday morning) in south central Oklahoma as well as at Mount Herman in the southeastern corner of the state- the Mesonet site recording 3.55 inches of rain in the past 24 hours there.
The most recent U.S. Drought Monitor map is below (as released Thursday morning), will likely show many changes next week due to the rainfall, but the dry areas in the western part of the state are accurate, McManus says. Areas of D4(exceptional drought) spread just a little bit across far western Oklahoma and have now crept up to cover 11.34% of the state. At the same time, the amount of D0-D4 has gone down from 75% to 68%. McManus adds that what that shows is that drought is intensifying in the west and going away in the east.
What that means is that central through eastern Oklahoma is winning the race to the summer heat, while the western (along with southern and northern Oklahoma) area is losing the race. The western third of the state is showing annual rainfall running less than 40 percent of normal, about the same as it did during the last two years of drought.
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