Record dose of rain offers heat relief in Oklahoma
Record dose of rain offers heat relief in Oklahoma City

By John David Sutter

Published: August 12, 2008

Lumbering storm systems Monday created the wettest August day on record for Oklahoma City — even wetter than those during last summer's tropical storm, according to the National Weather Service in Norman.

Chris Sohl, a meteorologist with the weather service, said spotty overnight and morning rain in Oklahoma City dropped 4.62 inchesof precipitation at Will Rogers World Airport. That beat the previous record — 3.82 inches— for the wettest August day, which was set last year when the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin moved through the city on Aug. 19, Sohl said.

August is a notoriously hot and dry month in Oklahoma. The metro area averages only 2.48 inches of rain — a little more than half of Monday's total — during the entire month, according to the National Weather Service.

The slow-moving storm system fed off a patch of humid air that moved into the state from the Gulf of Mexico, meteorologists said.

Air from Texas hopped a cool front line on Oklahoma's southern border and created enough of a shake-up in the atmosphere to produce rain in the southern part of the state. The air was so wet that it didn't take much of a disturbance to set things off, Sohl said.

Southern and eastern Oklahoma also saw significant amounts of rain, with Shawnee reporting 5.63 inches by Monday at 5:30 p.m., according to the Oklahoma Mesonet.

Northwest of the Oklahoma City metro area, the storm dropped 2.27 inches of rain by Monday evening on Watonga, a town that suffered heavy damage during last year's tropical storm.

Southeast Oklahoma saw the most widespread rain, with 1 to 4 inches of precipitation reported across the area, according to the Mesonet.

The weather service reported street flooding in some areas, but meteorologists said most of the rain was soaked up rather quickly by thirsty soil.

Rain was expected to continue overnight and should clear out of the southern half of Oklahoma by early this morning, meteorologists said.

The next chance for rain will be Thursday and it could last into the weekend, forecasters said.

Bruce Sherbon, a meteorologist with the weather service in Tulsa, said slow-moving storms are common in August.

That may be because the jet stream — and its strong winds, which keep storms moving — often jump to the northern Great Plains this time of year. When a storm moves slowly, it dumps more rain on a specific area, which causes high rain totals and flooding.

Rain forecast later in the week could cause some flooding, but nothing severe is expected, Sherbon said.

"The ground will soak it up like a sponge, and we should be ready for another good dose,” Sherbon said.

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