Dryness Lingers On for Much of State
By Derek Arndt
Assistant State Climatologist
The Oklahoma Climatological Survey
6/17/2004


NORMAN - Despite some very welcome rainfall during the morning hours, rainfall totals over the past weeks and months remains well below average for much of Oklahoma.

Southeastern and south-central Oklahoma continue their slow recovery from long-term deficits, while much of the state west of Interstate 35 observes continued dryness in recent months.

In fact, the sixty-day period ending yesterday was the driest such period of the 84 such periods (Apr18-Jun16) on record for west-central Oklahoma.  Other notable outliers for the period ending yesterday are listed by climate division below:

Panhandle:  7th-driest 30-day and 9th-driest 90-day totals
N. Central: 3rd-driest 30-day and 7th-driest 60-day totals
W. Central: 3rd-driest 30-day, driest 60-day and 3rd-driest 90-day
Central:    6th-driest 60-day, 2nd-driest 90-day
Southwest:  9th-driest 30-day, 6th-driest 60-day, 3rd-driest 90-day

In addition, the last 365 days represents the 9th-driest such period on record for the southwest climate division.

This information was taken directly from the OCS drought monitoring page:

  http://climate.mesonet.org/drought/

Media Contact:				For Additional Information:

Cerry Leffler					Derek Arndt
Oklahoma Climatological Survey		Assistant State Climatologist
100 E. Boyd, Suite 1210			100 E. Boyd, Suite 1210
Norman, OK  73019-1012			Norman, OK   73019-1012
405-325-2451 405-325-2541
405-325-2550 (fax)				405-325-2550 (fax)
cerry@ou.edu					darndt@ou.edu