Topic: Spring/Summer 2023

[CW2274]

Time-lapse meso over western OK yesterday. Seen a million, never gets old. 

https://images.foxweather.com/static.foxweather.com/www.foxweather.com/content/uploads/2023/06/662/372/ezgif.com-resize.gif

[Bunty]

In Stillwater, 1108 power customers are still out as of 6pm, 6/18, down from 2288. The remaining big trouble area is at the northeast edge of town where the wind broke power poles as pictured.   It takes time to get new poles installed and equipment transferred over or replaced.

Stillwater was fortunate not to be affected by the windiest part of the storm.  Just to the west and south winds gusted well into the 70's.  Weather stations in town appeared to have maxed out at 44 mph.  The storm was quite a remarkable squall line as it managed to maintain its strength as it traveled across the state.

[CW2274]

The remaining big trouble area is at the northeast edge of town where the wind broke power poles as pictured. 

Broken poles are common place here during monsoon season from mostly early season dry and wet microburst before the season's surface dew points raise and help mitigate that threat. When they do snap, they're all replaced with rust-colored metal poles. Solves that issue.

[Bunty]

Power outages in Stillwater clear down to 12 as of midnight.  Things were worse in Tulsa.  Tulsa officials said Sunday that residents should prepare to wait “days, not hours,” for power and other services to be fully restored in the wake of the most damaging citywide weather event since a 2007 ice storm that brought the city to a near-standstill for a week.

“We are seeing damage that, when it’s all said and done, may not be quite as bad as the 2007 … ice storm, but it’s going to be close,” Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said during a Sunday morning news briefing on the “wall of wind,” as he put it, that hit the Tulsa metro at about midnight.

[Bunty]

The remaining big trouble area is at the northeast edge of town where the wind broke power poles as pictured. 

Broken poles are common place here during monsoon season from mostly early season dry and wet microburst before the season's surface dew points raise and help mitigate that threat. When they do snap, they're all replaced with rust-colored metal poles. Solves that issue.

Pictured are how rust-colored metal poles are used in Stillwater.  They line the east edge of Boomer Lake Park for one mile.  Only part of town I know of that use them.

As of midnight Wednesday, close to 110,000 customers in Oklahoma are still without power.  Most of that number concentrated in the Tulsa area.  My friend in northeast part of Stillwater said he was without power for 24 hours.  It was apparently due to those snapped off power poles pictured earlier.

Oklahoma City area was spared from the worst parts of the storm system.

[CW2274]

Took forever as the spring pattern didn't want to leave, but June heat is finally here with the subtropical high on the march northwest outta Texas/Mexico. Progged for mid-teens Monday/Tuesday, then "cooling off" to 108-110F rest of the week. Hopefully this late season shift won't drastically delay the monsoon, but would seem reasonable since our average start is only ten days from now, and we still need alotta dynamics to come together.

[chief-david]

We may get rain today AND tomorrow!

[chief-david]

Finally, rain at home.   
Wish it would do it for the next 8-12 hours .

A few pea or sand size hail. But I will take it.

[ocala]

Time-lapse meso over western OK yesterday. Seen a million, never gets old. 

https://images.foxweather.com/static.foxweather.com/www.foxweather.com/content/uploads/2023/06/662/372/ezgif.com-resize.gif

You're right. They never get old. 

[Notsorusty]

Don't let the smoke get in your eyes!

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View of the Canadian smoke covering the Midwest yesterday. Yikes! More of the same today. 

[Notsorusty]

Where there's smoke . . .

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Smoke is pushing east all the way to the southern coast.
Image from yesterday (June 28th). (VIIRS Today: USA Composite)
Storms moving in from the west today, hopefully pushing it all the way out to sea!

[ValentineWeather]

Set a record low this morning, 45°.
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[CW2274]

Hopefully this late season shift won't drastically delay the monsoon, but would seem reasonable since our average start is only ten days from now, and we still need alotta dynamics to come together.

Yep. I guess I've lived here long enough to call the shots fairly accurately. The current pattern has no intention of letting a monsoon flow take hold on the SW (which affects basically the west as a whole as well), so no end in sight to above average summer heat and no areal rain. Sigh...

[Bunty]

For early Tuesday morning, as the image shows, Oklahoma became subject to the isolated bullseye in the nation for a major heavy rain event. It started out as two separate storms arising in west central Oklahoma. The right one expanded and moved across I-35. As it moved southeast, most of Stillwater got the far fringes of it so only sprinkles. OKC got drenched. Meanwhile, the weakened Kansas storms shortly after crossing the Oklahoma border ran into unstable air and reblossomed as the storms consolidated into one mass. Stillwater also got the fringe of this further development but not the sprinkles zone. Mesonet put the amount for Stillwater at 1.21". Just to the south, Perkins area got 2 to 3.25". But move east 20 miles to the county border and it got at or nearly 0. All of the Tulsa area got nothing. Unfortunate how most of the northeast quarter of the state has been missing out this summer. South central Oklahoma got a good drenching.

It's been the 5th wettest July, so far, for Oklahoma City and the month isn't even half over.  The summer high has yet to go over 100.  That may change next week if the weather pattern can change enough to bring in some drying, warmer winds from the Rockies and High Plains.

[Bunty]

From the NWS, Norman:  "At 10pm, The OKC surface station measured a dewpoint of 81°F. This ties the all time record highest dewpoint recorded at the OKC station, which was previously observed on June 12th, 1942 @ 6pm."

Also on 7/13, Thursday, Pauls Valley in south central Oklahoma registered 126 heat index - highest ever on Oklahoma Mesonet (30 years).

[CW2274]

Yep, already getting old. My lowest daily high this month has been 107F, and nary a drop of rain. Got the humidity as well, so, not so pleasant HI's either. Hopefully we can turn the tables around this week, but the rain-free heat remains for now.   

[WheatonRon]

Yep, already getting old. My lowest daily high this month has been 107F, and nary a drop of rain. Got the humidity as well, so, not so pleasant HI's either. Hopefully we can turn the tables around this week, but the rain-free heat remains for now.   

Now that our politicians are addressing climate change, Arizona temperatures will shortly be declining, rainfall will be abundant, unemployment will drop to near zero, the US deficit will go away, crime in the streets will be gone forever and life will be good again! We need more crises and having our politicians fix them!

NOT!

Oh I forgot—a cancer cure will be found and eradicated from society—all because of the resources devoted to climate change!

[Notsorusty]

Summer up in smoke!

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[ValentineWeather]

Summer up in smoke!

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Wish I could get my hands on some of those sick a** MFers that started the fires.

[CW2274]

Woo-hoo! Now that's the way to start the monsoon! Yea us!


17:25    71.0    63.8    66.1    78    3    12    W    OK    27.46    29.86    29.98    25.02    0.73    0.73
17:20    72.0    62.1    65.3    71    8    15    WNW    OK    27.46    29.85    29.98    25.02    0.73    0.73
17:15    71.0    63.4    65.9    77    8    16    WNW    OK    27.47    29.87    29.99    25.03    0.71    0.71
17:10    68.0    61.9    64.0    81    7    20    WNW    OK    27.51    29.92    30.03    25.06    0.69    0.69
17:05    74.0    63.2    66.6    69    3    24    S    OK    27.57    29.96    30.10    25.12    0.39    0.39
17:00    79.0    61.4    67.1    55    12    24    E    OK    27.56    29.93    30.09    25.11    0.14    0.14
16:55    86.0    60.9    68.8    43    12    25    E    OK    27.54    29.87    30.06    25.08    0.00    0.00
16:50    93.0    59.6    70.1    33    12    25    SE    OK    27.53    29.83    30.05    25.08    0.00    0.00
16:46    101.0    56.3    70.7    23    8    23    SE    OK    27.47    29.74    29.99    25.03    0.00    0.00
16:35    107.0    57.4    72.8    20    2    8    W    OK    27.42    29.65    29.93    24.98    0.00    0.00
16:30    109.0

[ValentineWeather]

It always comes right after the heat. 

We have about 400 stargazers meeting this week it's the 30th anniversary. This smoke is screwing everything up this year. 
https://www.nebraskastarparty.org/

[CW2274]

It always comes right after the heat. 

We have about 400 stargazers meeting this week it's the 30th anniversary. This smoke is screwing everything up this year. 
https://www.nebraskastarparty.org/

Well, that sucks. I got my first refractor when I was 14 for Christmas. Loved it...still have it. I currently have a little Meade ETX-90 that needs a cleanup and tuning. Great little scope.

GL with the $%&((& smoke! 

[Bunty]

This photo shows an example of an Oklahoma Mesonet weather station, in this case, the one in Stillwater. It's located a half mile west of Western St. and a quarter mile north of W. 6th on OSU-owned land, mostly rural. Right after this picture was taken, it started raining. But only turned out to be just a minor shower cloud. The station didn't register so much as .01". Oklahoma Mesonet has 120 weather stations with at least one in all 77 counties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Mesonet

[Bunty]

Friday morning featured not quite the northern half of Oklahoma getting some generous rains fairly evenly distributed, though Tulsa was in a donut hole for less rain.  The Mesonet weather station pictured above got 1.09".  I got 1.14".   

Most of Oklahoma has been well blessed this summer, though not perfectly so from at least one widespread severe storm event, a squall line, associated with unusually high wind. Some people have had very big hail.  Anyway, when it gets hot it hasn't been Texas sized heat well into the 100s.  Rain has been generous enough to keep the grass green but when it rains, it doesn't do it in 10" amounts like in Vermont.

[ValentineWeather]

Could you tell on the Mesonet weather station what the rain gauge was? Many of the AWOS have the same tipping bucket I use with the heater. Link: https://texaselectronics.com/product/8-inch-tipping-bucket-rain-gauge/  I know the ASOS have gone to the weighing gauge.
The reason I'm asking those siphon tipping buckets are slow responding taking several hundredths to register at all but work well during the heavy downpours so it's a catch-22 do you want poor results with small rain amounts so the heavy downpours are accurate? I myself have stuck with the regular tipping bucket and stayed away from the siphon type. I noticed some of the Kansas Mesonet stations have gone to the siphon tipping buckets even having a dual setup.  https://mesonet.k-state.edu/about/dailytotals/#how-we-measure-precipitation