We got .7 inches today in NW OKC. Every little bit helps!

Yes it does!

Dawn;
Good to see you post. Your absence always makes me worry you're out watering the firefighters who are internally on fire who are watering the external wildfires ... yada

Mind I ask? Is missing data commonplace with the Mesonet site such as Stillwater right now? Of course, I can just access alternative data sources for the same information. I was just wondering if it's common place. I've become quite spoiled with it. I was very happy to see the, albeit slight, rain fall amounts.

bon

Bon, Well, I've been out with the VFD a couple of times lately, but not on anything big. I was out at one fire call the day before yesterday and then out at the station a while yesterday restocking coolers with ice and restocking fridges with bottled drinks to pre-chill them. Mostly I've just been busy running oodles of errands this week. I was getting worried I didn't have enough food on hand to feed the firefighters if we had a really big wildfire, but this week I have bought a ton of stuff, so I am ready for whatever Mother Nature throws at us. So far, in our county, Mother Nature has been kind to us and the fires we've had haven't been too bad. It is interesting to note that we've been out on about the exact same number of calls as we had by this point in time last year, but the fires are mostly minor and we are only out a couple of hours, or maybe 3-4 hours. Last year we'd be out all day, sometimes all night, and sometimes for several days on one wildfire. Believe me, we are couting our blessings because so far the fires this year just are not that intense here. Some people say it is because there's nothing left to burn, but that's a vast overstatement.

It seems like every time we are on the verge of having explosive wildfire conditions this summer, we get just enough rain to prevent them. That is happening today. We had a tiny bit of rain last night, a little more overnight, and it just started drizzling. Our current temperature is 77 and it feels wonderful. I cannot believe it is raining. It isn't hard rain, but it is rain.

Mesonet stations go offline for a portion of every day and there's not much you can do about it except wait it out. It seems worse at some times than at others. Ours seems to go offline every time the winds blows at a speed higher than 10 mph. OK, that is a slight exaggeration, but not much. When my mesonet station is down, I just go to the NWS Norman office webpage, and go to the map that shows all the counties. I place the curser as close to my community as I can get it on the map and click. That usually pulls up the point forecast for Bomar just east of us, along with the current conditions at the Gainesville Airport. Since my weather seems more like the weather at that airport than at our Burneyville mesonet station, I can look at their weather and know mine is usually very similar.

Your station may be offline a lot this week due to the recent wildfires and electrical outages. There's always a chance the fire got close to it and damaged it and it is down for repair too.

Dawn

Woo hoo! 60 degrees this morning and DROPPING. I'm thinking some spinach is in order! Hasn't rained here, yet.

bon

Dawn, I'm so glad ya'll didn't have the horrible fires such as last year. Ironically, our area ended up with them all so, I guess it's not that much better, but it seemed first hand when I could almost feel your fatigue from it all.

Kids and I are going to GET OUT this morning, plant some more seeds, dig and ready some dirt, haul and begin readying some kindling and timber for winter use. Then we're going to walk over to the fire station, say hello and the library for a few books. Oh my gosh... FREEDOM ... blessed lower temps AND humidity at 73 percent. Maybe we'll get that cloud cover and, maybe, it'll do some good. I'll gladly scurry back indoors for that. But wait.. maybe we'll just play in the rain should it be warm enough at the time.

Woo I feel like a colt in spring (and I'm donnin' that sweater)!

Dawn I find it odd they have me in an area needing less than those around us. We have received a little more in showers the last 2 weeks than most but not enough to make much difference. I would be tickled pink with 3-4 inches over the next 4-6 weeks let alone 6-9. It is cloudy here this morning and 70. They are saying it could be upper 50s Monday morning. As my Dad always said during times like this we are one day closer to the drought ending today than we were yesterday. The same applies to the heat moderating. I try to handle the situation one day at a time. If I had know 4 years ago it was going to last this long I wouldn't have planted much if anything. But like most garden addicts I'm planning for next year. Jay

Jay, You know, I looked at how they had your area categorized and all I could figure out was that maybe it is because your average annual rainfall is lower than some other areas. I believe they use average annual rainfall as the benchmark for this map....just getting an area within a certain amount of that number.

We all have to be optimists to garden in this hot, dry part of the country where summers are always rough (and that's in a good year). I always tell myself in July and August that if I have any sense at all, I won't try to plant a garden "next year", but realistically speaking, I'm always going to have a garden next year. Partly I think that we forget over the winter just how badly the drought and other weather issues smacked down our gardens the previous year. Partly I think we love gardening enough to just go ahead and do it anyway, despite the odds.

Bon, We've been lucky so far, but keep in mind that in a normal year, the fire season really doesn't get going until after the first frost and often not under winter. We have had some bad fires this spring and summer, but they do not rise to the level of last year's yet, and that is good. Of course, any fire is not good for the people whose property is burned--from their viewpoint, it doesn't matter if the fire was 1 acre or 100 or 1000 if it was their acre(s) that burned.

In our worst year here, which was 2005-2006, the fires didn't start until October 2005 and then we were out almost daily and, in one bad month (I think it was July 2006) we had as many as 5 wildfires a day. Often, we had to leave one fire that was burning and go to another fire that had started because the new fire was threatening more homes. Wildfires in the summer in Oklahoma actually are atypical because in OK the typical wildfire season is in the dormant season where there is relatively little green vegetation. In a more normal year than 2011 and 2012 we have enough green grass in most parts of the state that when grassfires or brushfires start, they are easily extinguished without ever progressing to being a wildfire.

It is a nice cool morning, but we were in the 100s yesterday and will be around 100 today, so even though the early morning and late evening hours are nice, the middle of the day is still pretty rough.

Firefighters at the northern end of our county already have been paged out to a grassfire. This early in the day when our relative humidity is as high as it will be today, that's not good.

Dawn