It has been dry the past couple of weeks in Oklahoma, and farmers are looking for some rainfall in the forecast. State Climatologist Gary McManus says tropical storm Norma might be the answer for much-needed rainfall.
“When it comes to these tropical storm remnants, you’re in really dicey territory, especially coming from the southwest where there’s not a lot of flow,” McManus said. “In this case, we have a large upper-level trough approaching from the west that looks like it will help catch the Norma and steer it towards the north/northeast, possibly right up our way. The resulting rain is finally showing up on the 7-day forecast.”
McManus says most of the rain from that system will actually wait and arrive on the 7th day.
When storms like this approach, according to McManus, many things can happen.
“Those remnants travel up our way, and with the approaching storm from the west, we should have good moisture return from the Gulf of Mexico with dewpoints quite high for this time of year,” McManus said. “So a lot still has to happen between now and early next week, but we’re certainly due for some luck and rain.”
The Fall temps we saw last week are not as prominent this week as highs in the upper 70’s and 80’s cover the state, however, a cold front is making its way through the state as we speak, but McManus says its more of a ‘lukewarm’ cold front, and we should see minimal impacts on today’s temperatures.
Oklahoma sure needs the moisture as we are on day 89 of our flash drought. McManus says over the next couple of days this rain will fall off and the drought maps will continue to get uglier.
So right now we are hoping that Norman will come to town and bring some much needed rainfall to the state!
