Some parts of the state see record rain; others lacking
How rainfall compares to expectations This map shows how closely this year's rainfall matches up with how much rain is expected. For example, northwest Oklahoma never gets much
Some parts of the state see record rain; others lacking

By John David Sutter

Published: May 4, 2008

While eastern Oklahoma has seen record rainfall in recent weeks — with Tulsa reporting its all-time wettest April — some wheat farmers in the Panhandle are looking at crops so dry they may not produce a harvest this year.

Federal forecasters last week upgraded a drought in the Oklahoma Panhandle from moderate to severe, spreading worry through an area that hasn't seen substantial rain since late 2006.

"Wheat is a pretty resilient plant, but we just have zero moisture there,” said Steve Kraich, an agriculture and forage expert at the OSU Extension office in Guymon. "It'd have to stay extra cool for a long period of time, and have several inches of rain come about fairly soon in order to make any type of a crop at all.”

Kraich said the drought will hit dry-land farmers, those who don't use irrigation systems, the hardest. They make up the bulk of the wheat industry in the Panhandle. But Kraich said most farmers have been around for generations, so they know to expect the occasional year without a crop.

"We can have complete crop failure one year and have a total bumper crop the next year,” Kraich said.

Reverse that, and you've got the current situation. Last year's wheat crop was nourished by heavy rains in December 2006, and high wheat prices brought in huge profits.

This year's global food shortages would put Panhandle wheat farmers in a good spot — if they could produce, which seems unlikely. The price of a bushel of wheat has hit record highs this year.

The Panhandle can expect a little rain in May, but not as much as the rest of the state, said Gary McManus, a climatologist at the Oklahoma Climatological Survey.

Historically, May is the wettest month for Oklahoma, but in the Oklahoma Panhandle, rain usually doesn't come until summer, he said.

Not that the farmers would be expecting much. Annual rainfall varies drastically across the state, with the northwest the driest and the southeast the wettest. The average year-to-date rainfall for the Oklahoma Panhandle is just 4.6 inches, compared to 14.8 inches in the southeast part of the state. So far, the Panhandle has received only 1.83 inches of rain this year, according to the state Climatological Survey.

Tulsa reported the wettest April on record, with 9.33 inches of rain. That's more than twice the normal.

The ground in northeast Oklahoma is so saturated that flooding will continue to be a big risk this month, said Nicole McGavock, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Tulsa.

"It doesn't take much more to lead to flash flooding whenever it does rain,” she said.

The wet weather is a bit puzzling for climatologists, said McManus. The world is in a La Nina pattern, which is the product of cooler than normal ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. That should spell a warm, dry winter for Oklahoma and the American Southwest, McManus said. But so far those predictions haven't been observed.

What is clear is that Oklahoma generally has seen wetter than average weather since last summer. Before that, the state was stuck in a searing drought.

"Things are pretty desperate up in that area,” he said. "People don't realize that.”

In addition to wheat crops that won't start growing, wildfire risks remain high in that part of the state. Since the beginning of the year, at least 20,000 acres of range land have burned in Woodward County, said Matt Lehenbauer, the county's emergency manager. Neighboring Ellis County has seen just as much land go up in flames, he said.

A wildfire Wednesday night in Woodward County forced the evacuation of 12 homes about three miles north of Woodward, Lehenbauer said.

Two of the fires this year led to federal disaster declarations, he said.

McManus said he expects a fairly normal May for the bulk of Oklahoma — but that can be a dangerous statement.

Along with the large amounts of rain, May storms produce an average of 20 tornadoes, more than any other month. Tornado season typically lasts from April to mid-June in Oklahoma, but, on average, 38 percent of the year's tornadoes occur in May. In 1999, May storms produced 90 tornadoes, according to weather service records.

So far this year, the weather service has recorded 18 tornadoes. The average for January through April is 15.5.

McManus, said stark differences in the weather of eastern and western Oklahoma are because the state has several climate zones.

Just because most of the state has been wet recently, that doesn't mean Oklahomans are in for a wet year, he said.

May is "a transition between our springtime temperatures and our summer temperatures,” McManus said.

"Mid-June is really when we start to get what we call summer here, because that's when we dry out,” McManus said.

Lehenbauer said residents in western Oklahoma continue to worry about wildfires.

"We still don't consider it safe yet,” he said.

"We still don't consider it safe yet.”

Matt Lehenbauer, Woodward County emergency manager about wildfire dangers in his area

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