Oklahoma’s drought just took a big leap forward, and not for the good. Consider the pictures of dry land shown on the latest Mesonet report. They show a serious need for some rainfall.
State Climatologist Gary McManus, put it this way in his Thursday morning Mesonet update.
“We saw another big jump in drought this week, with our first bout of D3-Extreme drought (is there any other kind?) in the state since December 2023. Aye, it’s only 5%, but ’tis enough, especially if you’re down in SW OK.”
As the Dought monitor report indicated, the D-3 or Extreme Drought included nearly 5% of Oklahoma. So far, no parts of Oklahoma fall under the “Exceptional Drought” category.
Nearly half of Oklahoma is under the “Severe Drought” classification and it jumped from 39.66% last week to 47.55% this week.