Yeah...that, as we have record highs over the next week or so!!

LOL

Sharon

Normal in Oklahoma? Expect the unexpected to be blown in.

Sammy

Well, if we're expecting normal weather in OK this summer, I'm in trouble, because for Love County, drought is the norm!

Is it too early to hope for a nice little tropical system to hit the Texas coast (gently, of course) and then send us a big plume of moisture this way?

Last night my onions and potatoes attempted to lie prostrate on the ground. They simply threw up the hands in the air and said "Our soil temperature today is 97 degrees. We surrender!" Who can blame them?

Dawn

Yeah, I'm all for "above average" precipitation years, too, at least for the summer. It keeps the temperature down and keeps everything green! It's also good for our water bill.

We drove from Grove to Vinita, to Bartlesville, to Tulsa and back to Venita, then home today. Everything is amazingly green and the ponds and rivers are flowing high. No question as to why they call it 'green country'.

Go ahead and rub it in!

It is not all that green here, although May had a few good moments.

It is hay cutting and baling time here and we're already having hayfield fires and grass fires along I-35. (Our VFD just got paged out to a grassfire in the median of I-35 as I am typing this.) Apparently the May rain didn't help us here in our county nearly as much as we'd hoped it would. (However, our water bill in May was abnormally low for this time of year, which pleased OkieTim enormously.)

So, we're not deep green down here like y'all are up there....we're more of a greenish-tan rapidly going more to tan than to green. I wouldn't say we're 'Brown Country' yet, but we're on our way there.

I am surprised by how rapidly the fires are starting up again. We were sort of hoping for a break until July at least, but that's not gonna happen. We've probably had more fire calls this week than we did in the entire previous month.

Fiance was just telling me a story today about how one of his coworkers drove down to northwest Texas recently to visit relatives. Everything was nice and green until they got just SW of Lawton where it all suddenly switched to brown. He said it was like the vegetation never came out of winter dormancy there. When looking at different colors on the Drought Monitor maps, you know what it means, but I guess it doesn't hit you just how bad it is out west unless you see it.

We're deep brown going on our 4th year. Not sure how much longer trees and grass will hang in. This span is setting new records every day. We've been getting a few showers of an evening but they have been hit and miss. I've received around 4 tenths this week. I'm appreciate every drop and pray more is on the way soon. They are saying we have a chance this evening again. I hope we return to normal soon. When your yearly average is 16 inches and the most you've received in the previous 3 years is 12 inches normal would be very much appreciated. Jay

Hi Jay,

I noticed earlier this week that the U. S. Drought Monitor had finally caught up with your actual conditions.

It is amazing to me that the grass and trees are still hanging in there. We lose some trees in our woodland if we have Exceptional Drought hang on for more than a month or two. Of course, the native trees are in pretty bad shape already by the time we reach the 'Exceptional' stage.

I've seen your hit and miss showers on the radar some evenings and was hoping they were hitting you more than they were missing you.

When y'all finally do return to normal, you'll think it is raining too much. : )

Your drought there in Kansas is starting to remind me of the drought that lingered in much of Texas during the 1950s. It was before my time, but I've heard a lot about it over the years.

I'm hoping and praying y'all get rain tonight and every other time that there is any chance at all of rain falling.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Kansas Drought Monitor

Dawn,
Yes it finally caught up. That was after the county had already been declared a drought disaster county on May 10th. And emergency grazing of CRP grassland was approved. The Kansas agriculture report has listed us in basically a 15 mile radius of Elkhart in a disaster area since the first of the year. The reason we've received for the USDA not declaring it is that the area was too small. It had to spread to the whole county basically to be listed. Some more gov't reasoning I don't understand. Anyway we have been receiving some hope but have learned over the last 3 years not to get them too high too soon. There is basically no subsoil moisture. Jay