Summer is not here yet, but triple-digit heat is
Summer is not here yet, but triple-digit heat is

By John David Sutter

Published: May 20, 2008

If you were outside Monday, you already know this little bit of breaking news: It was hot.

Like 100-degrees hot in some spots — and for the first time this year.

But you may not know this: That was normal.

The 100-degree temperatures may have felt sweltering compared with the weather lately, but on average, this is exactly the time of year when Oklahoma first hits the triple digits, according to the Oklahoma Climatological Survey.

Someplace in Oklahoma usually hits 100 degrees for the first time on May 18.

Monday was May 19, just one day off the normal.

"If you look at our history, this is the closest to an average time to break 100 that we can get,” said Derek Arndt, assistant state climatologist.

Of course, defining normal for weather in a state like Oklahoma can be a tricky thing, Arndt said. We rarely hit our normals, instead swinging between extremes. The earliest the state ever hit 100 degrees was March 18, 1907, Arndt said. The latest the state has hit 100 was on July 4, 1995.

Monday's highest temperatures in Oklahoma were recorded in the southwest. By late afternoon, five towns had recorded 100-degree temperatures.

In Oklahoma City, Monday's high was 96 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. That's just shy of the 2006 record for May 19, which is 97 degrees.

We're not alone in the hot weather department. Much of the desert Southwest has seen searing triple-digit temperatures in recent days.

Scott Curl, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Norman, said the air got so hot Monday in part because plants haven't greened up in western Oklahoma. Once they start to grow and turn green, plants put moisture in the air and keep temperatures down slightly, he said.

He attributed the missing green-up to a lack of rain. Far northwest Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Panhandle are in a drought pattern. Eastern Oklahoma has seen record rainfall this year, along with flooding.

Arndt and Curl said the hot weather now doesn't necessarily mean Oklahoma is in for a hot summer.

"It really doesn't mean anything (for weather) down the road,” Curl said. "It's just the weather pattern we're in right now, and that's always subject to change.”

Arndt said the 100 degrees is an interesting, but perhaps arbitrary, marker for weather.

"Anyone who works outside more than a few minutes at a time can tell you there's no real difference between 99 and 101,” he said. "They're both just as miserable.”

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