{"id":17607,"date":"2013-12-12T06:20:58","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T12:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=17607"},"modified":"2013-12-12T06:46:24","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T12:46:24","slug":"a-wet-year-doesnt-mean-oklahoma-is-safe-from-drought-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2013\/12\/12\/a-wet-year-doesnt-mean-oklahoma-is-safe-from-drought-in-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"A Wet Year Doesn’t Mean Any Part of Oklahoma Is Safe From Drought in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. Drought Monitor<\/p>\n

The latest update of drought conditions in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Parts of Oklahoma have been suffering from severe and exceptional drought<\/a> conditions for three straight years. That is a long time, especially for communities in western Oklahoma.<\/p>

But this drought might be closer to its beginning than its end, and with little warning could encompass the entire state next year.<\/p>

When StateImpact went to the Ada<\/a> area late in the summer of 2012 to see the effects of the drought, things were crunchy.<\/p>

A few months later, in Oklahoma City, Lake Hefner recorded its record low level, and drastic measures were taken to make sure metro residents had enough water. Billions of gallons were diverted from Canton Lake<\/a>.<\/p>

At one point, state government even turned to religion<\/a> for help when Gov. Mary Fallin called on Oklahomans to pray for rain.<\/p>

<\/p>

Those prayers for water seemed to have worked. In 2013 a cool, wet summer dampened the drought across much of the state. But Associate State Climatologist Gary McManus says it\u2019s not over yet.<\/p>

\u201cIn the eastern two-thirds of the state, they\u2019re out of drought. So they can say, \u2018we\u2019re out of drought. Let\u2019s hope we stay that way,\u201d McManus says. \u201cWestern Oklahoma, they are in the third straight year of drought, and there\u2019s no end in sight. And there\u2019s really no way to tell if there\u2019s an end in sight until it either starts raining \u2014 or it doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>

In fact, McManus says the drought might still be in its early stages, and recent wet weather an aberration.<\/p>

\u201cEven during the dust bowl drought \u2014 the 1930s drought \u2014 there was a year in there where it was extremely wet. And in the 50s drought, depending on what part of the state you were in \u2014 that was a five to six year drought \u2014 but we\u2019d have a period of relief or two in there,\u201d McManus says. \u201cSo that\u2019s how these longer term droughts work. They see periods of intensification intermixed with periods of relief. And some unlucky folks, like western Oklahoma, they just get it straight through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Associate<\/a><\/p>\n

Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Associate State Climatologist Gary McManus<\/p>\n<\/div>

At the annual Governor\u2019s Water Conference<\/a> in Midwest City this fall, Veva Deheza, with the National Integrated Drought Information System, said droughts in the southwest fluctuate in intensity and also move around. She says forecasting that movement is nearly impossible:<\/p>

\u201cThe problem is we don\u2019t know when the end is. We\u2019re now here in 2013, and this blob has been moving around in some form over the last couple of years,\u201d Deheza says. \u201cWhere it will go next, we don\u2019t have a very clear idea. But all indications are that it\u2019s not going away.\u201d<\/p>

The question for Oklahoma is whether the drought will move east enough to envelop more or all of the state in 2014. McManus can\u2019t say if that will or won\u2019t happen. But if it does, by this time next year, we could be in a situation just as desperate as before.<\/p>

It looked like we were coming out of drought as we went into the spring of 2012, and then Mother Nature just shut the spigot off and we had our driest May through December on record,\u201d McManus says. \u201cAnd so by the end of 2012 the entire state was in significant drought. And that\u2019s how it can happen, and you just can\u2019t predict that sort of thing either. Comparatively, this one is still \u2014 I guess \u2014 it\u2019s still an infant, about half as long as the 50s drought.\u201d<\/p>

If you continue the comparison, Oklahoma got some relief<\/a> from drought in 1955, which was followed by the second driest year in state history in 1956.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This drought might be closer to its beginning than its end, and with little warning could encompass the entire state next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":17613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[423,540,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17607"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17607"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17626,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17607\/revisions\/17626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}