I second that. I'm concerned for those in SW and S Central!

We were at 87 at 5:00 PM, forecast for 34 tomorrow night, wind has been blowing all day. With the weather bouncing around like that we can expect almost anything. If it gets in the 30's in Ft. Smith I can expect freezing. My potatoes are the only thing that will be harmed by frost, and I dont have the time to cover them, nor anything to protect them from hail.

Larry

Last week I used pots & pans

Only got Pea-Sized hail for about one minute in Newcastle. It was much worse just a couple miles south of me. Whew!

Although I got 1.64" of rain in 35 minutes.

Pots and pans are a great idea!

Larry- how did you fair the storm last night?

Dulahey- WOW 1.64 inches in 35 minutes?

We got over six inches in like 2 hours and everything here is flooded. I don't think any of us have seen rain like this in a while?

Six inches? Oh my. Are you in the southwest or northeast? Is your garden floating? Did you escape the hail?

I cut my irises last night when I first got home to save them. I only had a few blooming and I was just sick thinking of what the hail could do to my irises and peonies...but we just got rain and I have a lovely bouquet on my desk. I wish I had snapped a pic last night. Bright sunshine yellow irises and a dark purple iris and two unknowns so far.

Lisa- I am right off Fort Gibson Lake half way between 412 and the town of Wagoner. They call this the northeast I guess!

If we got hail, I don't know about it. There were/was a *tornado* not too far from us, about 30 minutes. Had it stayed on a more eastern path, it would have come right by here. And the winds were frightening, but I think that's bc I am use to living in a city, where you have barriers. There's not barriers in the country. :)

My garden..well, I had common sense enough to protect it from hail and covered everything with a bucket with a rock on top, then I thought I would *smart* and put a tarp down on top of all , with rocks holding it in place, just trying to keep the wind from knocking any buckets over. So I now have a semi-man made pond where my garden is suppose to be bc the tarp is holding 2-3 inches of water on top :/

I bet your desk looks wonderful with the irises on it! We have those dark purple ones here at our place and they are just so lovely to look at! Enjoy that bouquet!

Wow, 6 inches! I don't think I'm very far from you (between Muskogee and Tquah) and really didn't even have puddles in the usual places this morning! I didn't even wake up last night!

Are you coming to the Spring Fling?

Momofsteelex3, That's an incredible amount of rainfall.

If there is anything at all that Oklahoma gardeners have mastered, it is the art of dealing with the weather. When I moved here, someone in Texas told me that we only have one season in OK--the "hot" season. After living here a while, I told them that we do too have all four seasons, and some years it seems like we have all 4 seasons in the same week.

When we lived in Texas, the biggest challenge was the hot summers. Here, every day in spring seems to present its own challenge---anything from wildfire to strong winds to hail or floods, lightning or tornadoes, derecho winds, microbursts, etc. One think about OK weather is that it never is dull. I'd never even heard of thundersnow, derecho wind or graupel before we moved here.

I have used pots and pans before to protect plants from hail, even though it meant I had to wash a ton of pots and pans the next day.

This explains why my garden, which sits about 100' feet from the roadway always looks like a redneck garden....I've covered plants with lawn chairs and other patio furniture, the white folding tables used to hold flats of plants in normal times, pots, pans, trashcans and cardboard boxes with bricks orconcrete pavers on top to keep the wind from flipping them over, 5-gallon buckets, baskets, cat litter buckets, old quilts, sleeping bags, etc. One day I had so many tables, chairs and quilts in the garden to protect plants from hail that a neighbor asked me if I was decorating the garden for a garden party.

I also used handfuls of chopped/shredded autumn leaves or hay placed strategically on top of and around plants to protect them from late freezing weather or hail. Sometimes I have completely buried potato plants in hay and straw mulch prior to a hard freeze so the foliage wouldn't freeze back. It is amazing what the weather here will cause you to do.

Hail certainly is nothing to take lightly in this state and some years we have a whole lot of it.

I'm thrilled for all who got meaningful rainfall, but hope the damage doesn't take all the fun out of getting the rain.

Larry, We still were at 76 or 77 degrees around midnight after reaching a high of 86 degrees at our house yesterday. I had rototilled the back area where we're building the new garden in advance of the rain to take out all the weeds that have sprouted since last week's rain and then I mowed the lawn grass on a hot and humid afternoon hoping to get it cut before the rain arrived. Finally wind and rain arrived here sometime after midnight and maybe it even was after 1 a.m., but I don't think any hail fell here, not even small pieces. It currently is very windy and only 44 degrees which is a big change from yesterday.
We got less than an inch of rain (about 0.85" in the rain gauge) but are getting lots of wind.

This afternoon I will cover up the plants that are in the ground to protect them from the overnight low temperatures....and then next week we'll have another very cold night/early morning and I will do the same thing all over again. I never thought floating row cover was worth the bother when I lived in Texas, but I use it like crazy here for plant protection during late cold spells.

This year for hail protection I have put hoops over all the beds as they are planted. Then I attach deer netting to the hoops and leave it for the first month or so. That gives the plants a chance to get established before hail pounds them into oblivion. Older and more well-established plants can bounce back quickly from hail for the most part, but younger smaller ones cannot, and plants like corn cannot if their growing tip is broken off.

Last year we had hail here at our house 11 times, though it never was really big hail, so I have taken a little time to give the plants more protection early in the season this year.

I'm waiting for one of y'all to get rainfall that breaks my garden's rainfall record of 12.89" in 24 hours from April 29, 2009. If we'd had to give a name to the garden that year, it would have been "A River Runs Through It" but for us it was a welcome river as it instantly took us out of the drought that had affected us for most of 2008 and all of 2009 until that point in time. It is rare that you get enough rainfall in one day to end a drought.

I'm going to link the rainfall map for the last 24 hours that shows rainfall recorded at the OK Mesonet stations.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: 24-hour rainfall accumulation

We had quite a bit of rain and wind. I have not heard any reports but I expect it was in the 2" range. I got up around 1:00 am and carried my plants inside because the storm was approaching. I think most of the heavy stuff went several miles west of me, up toward northwest AR. It is still raining a little and we are expect lower temps and more rain tonight.

I really need to get the rest of my soil worked. The north garden was almost dry enough to work before last night.

Larry

I keep a bunch of 5 gallon chlorine buckets in my garage and I covered all of my tomatoes up yesterday afternoon. It ended up not being necessary because we didn't get any hail. Or anything else. Our local Mesonet station got about half an inch, but my rain gauge had a tenth of an inch in it when I checked this morning. I guess it's not really surprising, storms always miss us. But I guess I'll take the lack of rain if it's also a lack of tornadoes.

I think Tom Steed reservoir ended up getting a couple of inches so at least there's that. As much as we need it to rain here, we need it to rain there even more.

Leslie

Well, rain we got, sleep we didn't. Our Mesonet rainfall shows 3.08 and I think that is a little more than we got at our house. My rain gauge is in the garden and has a slight 'leaning' this morning. I can see that it is greater than 2 inches, but it is also too muddy to make my way out there and I'm not sure it is accurate anyway. It takes a lot of rain to make my garden muddy, and today it has big puddles. My in-ground onions need a life guard and my front yard looks like a large lake.

Just learned where the tornado went through in our area and have checked on friends there. They were about a half mile from the damage and live down in a valley and have no damage. It moved a house 8 feet off it's foundation and took out a lot of trees.

I always depend on TV6 out of Tulsa, but haven't been impressed with their new changes. I had the TV on which kept going off, then coming back on again. My computer stayed up all night and I had Channel 6 on one monitor and Mesonet on the other. The weather radio was coming on frequently. For a period of time, I couldn't see any of the high rotation indicators, but I could see the intense rotation a little further south. I knew from what I was hearing that there was rotation, but it wasn't showing up. When we knew it was coming near us, and our TV kept going out, we just gave up and went into the shelter for about an hour. Once we could see that the worst part was going to cross into Arkansas and Missouri a little south of Grove, we came out of the shelter, but didn't stop watching it. So my sleep started at 5AM. No damage at our house, but LOTS of water.

The dogs and I were up to 4:00 am or later. I got so hyped up listening to the TV weather and the weather radio that I couldn't go to sleep even after TV guy said he didn't think we would get any more dangerous weather. He saw lots of rotation and warned of a bow front with high winds, so I got two coats on and got between the stairs and a couch in the basement. Really all I got was heavy rain (2.4 inches)and wind but not damaging wind. The lightning was not that bad. I never have the computer on during a storm because I have had damage in the past.

Dawn I think it is funny that you have a red neck garden because mine is full of wagons and plastic tubs black stock tanks and other ratty looking stuff.

I just got in from covering my potatoes with hay. The computer says it is in the mid to high 40's, it feels colder than that, and there was a little sleet mixed in with the light rain. Because of my microclimate It could drop below freezing here.

I agree, its a big change from yesterday.

1st soonergrandmom- I am so glad to see you on here and hear that everything is ok at your house! When it past by us last night and went to Inola, then they were saying Spavinaw I started to worry about you bc just the other day you told me you live up there. So glad to see you pop in! And News on 6 is who we watch too, but I just don't really care for them or any of the others here.

Lisa- no I am not coming to the Spring Fling. I entertained the idea though.

ejm135- not too far, a stones through to the south and east of me!

Dawn- isn't that the truth about all 4 in one week! My friends and family back in Kansas think I am making up this crazy weather and it can't be as bad here as it is there! I just laugh!

Well, I made it look a little more redneck out in my garden. I took large trash bags and covered up the apple baskets I am using to cover my tomatoes. I wasn't sure if the basket would provide enough coverage and didn't want to chance it.

I can't say for certain that we got 6, that is just what a neighbor said. SO now a rain gauge is on my to buy list.

slowpoke-glad your taters are covered! And yes it feels a lot cooler then they are saying!

Oh, you should come! You would get a chance to meet a few of us :) We don't bite, I promise!

momofsteel - Thanks for caring. I live north of the town of Grove and the tornado that touched down crossed on the south side of town and went across the State line.

I actually love the weather guys on Channel 6, but I had a hard time keeping the station last night. I also don't know why the rotation wasn't showing on the website. Earlier in the night I was watching an OKC station, and kept thinking how much better our Tulsa guys were.

I spent my childhood about 30 miles north of where Dawn now lives, so I am no stranger to Oklahoma storms, but last nights event sent me to the shelter. I had already seen the probable path, then when I no longer could see it, I was ready to take cover. The TV was still turned on so when I heard it come back on, I checked to see where the storm cell was and it was moving out of the State, so we came out of the shelter but still continued to monitor the storm. It was extremely loud all night. When the first part of the storm started it was going on both sides of us so we could hear the thunder although it wasn't coming over us.