It's a Bird..... It's a Plane..... It's ... It's...... Rain?!??!?!?

Well I woke up yesterday morning and got ready for work and knew that it was going to be the same ol day. Hot with a continued chance of hot with a smattering of dry thrown in. The TV weatherman was teasing in his lead in that we had a 30% chance of rain for the western half of the state. He would always put the disclaimer in that "it won't rain everywhere, all the time" or "this won't be a wall of water!". He was hedging his bets.... playing it conservative. In other words, he didn't want to get a slew of calls saying thanks for nothing! Well as it turns out... he was actually right. We did get measurable rain in a lot of places in the central part of Oklahoma!

(Courtesy NWS Norman)

Well as you can see in the graphic above, Will Rogers World Airport(KOKC) in OKC got 2.91 inches of rain. Wiley Post Airport about 5 miles NNW of KOKC got 1.01 inches! This just shows you how sporadic these thunderstorms were. Now where I work, we got a lot of rain and wind! We had a lot of small tree limbs and leaves in the parking lot. Elsewhere in the state, Newkirk, Ok. up in Kay County got 4.03 inches according to the Oklahoma Mesonet. (see graphic)

(Courtesy of Oklahoma Mesonet)

As you can see, not everyone got rain in the state but those who did got enough to cool it off for a little while. Another interesting thing is that we didn't make it to 100 degrees yesterday. Well until yesterday, we had gone 13 straight days hitting the century mark! So far this year we have had 22 days of 100 degrees or more with the hottest day being last Saturday with 110 degrees. 

(Courtesy NWS Norman)

What rain we got was not enough to end our drought but it was much welcomed and helped with wildfire conditions for parts of the state. We are still on par right now to be in the top 5 of driest years and that is not good.
I will leave you with this... if you get rain the next couple of days.... enjoy it! If not, you will continue to be hot and dry! So check on each other, your neighbors and the elderly. Make sure you drink plenty of water and have a plan on where to go or who to contact if you need to get out of the heat.

Stay safe!

Bryan