In Oklahoma, why does it always rain on our parade?

By Bryan Painter

Published: April 30, 2008

The flags went tight as the wind gusted and the rain poured.

The weather hadn't been too bad through much of the day.

So where did this come from?

Then I remembered the Festival of the Arts was under way in downtown Oklahoma City. Why wouldn't there be at least one day of rain?

If you've lived in Oklahoma for any time at all, you know certain events seem to attract severe weather or at least rain. So I queried Gary McManus, assistant state climatologist for the Oklahoma Climatological Survey.

He made a good point. I am not nearly as likely to remember the good weather during the 2001 Festival of the Arts, "when nary a drop of rain fell during the entire” event, as I am to remember the severe thunderstorm during the 1999 festival.

He's correct. I'm guilty.

And this guilt took me back to my childhood in Enid and a well-known event, which you can actually enjoy this week.

Today is the opening day of the Tri-State Music Festival in Enid. Bands, drill teams, choirs and others come together for this outstanding event.

In 1932, Russell L. Wiley, the Phillips University band director, founded Phillips Band Day. It attracted bands from Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. The next year it was called the Tri-State Band Festival and it eventually became known as the Tri-State Music Festival, expanding to include various music groups.

I participated once in Tri-State, but looked forward to it every year — the music around town, the rides downtown and certainly the big parade on Saturday.

But we always knew to take our attention off the activities long enough to listen for warnings and to take a look at the sky every now and then. I remember one year when our family rushed to the basement of a church because of tornado warnings. The tornado never came, but the ground turned white with hail.

The forecast for Enid for today through Saturday calls for pretty nice weather, said Ty Judd, meteorologist with the National Weather Service forecast office in Norman.

Judd said winds are expected to gust today and Thursday and there is a chance of thunderstorms late Thursday afternoon into Thursday evening. Then, he expects it to cool off Friday and Saturday for "very nice days.”

Still, I thought this was an interesting time to talk about the events that seem to weather the storm year after year.

After correctly pointing out that I would tend to remember the bad weather before the good, McManus said the theory of bad weather finding its way to some events is not without merit "and is actually based on good old statistics.”

McManus said some parts of the year in Oklahoma are naturally rainier than others. The state's rainy season occurs in the spring from April to mid-June.

"There is a secondary, but less active, rainy season in the fall as well,” he said. "So when talking about events like the Oklahoma City Arts Festival in April or the State Fair in September, we're talking, climatologically speaking of course, about an increased chance of rain, since they do fall in our rainy seasons.”

Here comes the trivial but still interesting. McManus looked at all the April 25ths from 1897 to 2007.

Although the Festival of the Arts hasn't been around that entire time period, April 25 is a good general target date.

Of those 111 April 25ths, it rained at least one-tenth of an inch on 26 of those days, or 23 percent of the time.

McManus said if you consider the days surrounding the 25th have somewhat similar statistics, you're going to have rain from time to time during the Festival of the Arts.

"And, when it does rain,” he said, "and you're standing outside exposed to the elements, it will be memorable.”

Take the State Fair of Oklahoma. One day you might wear shorts, the next day — or possibly the same day — the temperatures drop and you see people wearing coveralls. And then there's the rain. Many times I've hurried from one building to the next to escape a cold rain.

That's in September. Another example comes from an event held in July, the International Finals Youth Rodeo in Shawnee.

Most of the time perspiration not precipitation flows. But talk to regulars and they can tell you of the days when the clouds open up and the arenas become a mud spectacular.

The cool thing to remember is that this too is a part of the history that rodeo celebrates.

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