Wild spring could signal hot summer for Oklahoma
Season brought record rain, snowfall

Bryan Painter Comments 0
Published: June 20, 2009

NORMAN — Spring 2009 will leave behind a record-breaking blizzard and a record-breaking rain, according to the Oklahoma Climatological Survey.

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WEATHER DISASTERS

So far this year, Oklahoma has received three presidential disaster declarations, said Michelann Ooten, spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Department.

• Oklahoma received federal individual assistance Friday for residents and businesses in nine counties where damage from wildfires occurred April 9-12.

• Oklahoma is waiting to hear about a request for assistance for local governments in 11 counties where damage from heavy snows occurred March 27-28.

• Federal officials denied a request for assistance in 17 counties because of damage caused by severe storms, tornadoes and flooding April 25-May 16. The state is appealing, Ooten said.

BRYAN PAINTER,

STAFF WRITER

Summer is the peak season for one of the deadliest weather phenomena — lightning. In the United States, an average of 62 people are killed each year by lightning.

Online

More information may

be found by going to

lightningsafety.noaa.gov/

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Sunday marks the start of summer. With several triple-digit temperatures recorded already, it might indicate an extremely hot season ahead. But one only needs to look at spring to realize Oklahoma seasons are usually unscripted.

A major late-March snowstorm dumped more than 2 feet of snow on northwest Oklahoma March 27-30, said Gary McManus, the Oklahoma Climatological Survey’s associate state climatologist.

The storm broke a state record for 24-hour snowfall. The previous mark of 23 inches at Buffalo on Feb. 21, 1971, was bested by 25 inches six miles north of Fort Supply.

That’s not only a lot for 24 hours, it’s a lot period.

Any of those totals would make it the second-heaviest snowstorm in Oklahoma since 1951, bested only by the 36 inches reported at Buffalo in the February 1971 blizzard.

Although the blizzard didn’t go statewide, temperatures dropped into the 20s and 30s in the early days of spring, which began March 20. That was followed by the 50th-coolest April on record and the 19th-coolest May.

"So even the sweltering heat that we’ve experienced as summer draws near has little effect on the statistics,” McManus said.

As of June 18, the statewide average temperature for the spring was 63.3 degrees, 1.5 degrees below normal.

The other record mentioned was that of rainfall. The Oklahoma Mesonet site at Burneyville in southern Oklahoma recorded 12.42 inches of rainfall April 29-30, breaking the Mesonet’s daily rainfall record.

Primarily because of that, Burneyville’s 25.67 inches so far this year exceeds its total rainfall last year of 22.84 inches.

One thing that has been similar to the past is a variance of rainfall totals by area.

Between March 20 and Wednesday, the Mesonet station at Kenton in the western Panhandle had received 2.03 inches. The station at Broken Bow in southeastern Oklahoma had received 26.83 inches.

McManus said Mesonet information shows the southeastern region of the state had its eighth-wettest spring, with an average of 22.21 inches, while the south-central region had its seventh-wettest spring with 19.25 inches.

However, the Panhandle received an average of only 5.03 inches, the 20th-driest for that region, and the west-central region recorded an average of 8.88 inches, its 31st-driest.

And yet one last prime example of a widely variable spring can be found in temperatures.

The temperature at the Boise City Mesonet station dipped to 11 degrees March 28. The temperature at the Alva, Beaver and Buffalo station Wednesday was 104 degrees.