No Drought Or Heat Relief In Sight For The Okla. Panhandle

The extraordinary heat and wind during June has taken its toll on the western half of Oklahoma, allowing the persistent drought that began last fall to intensify and spread. The new map released by the United States Drought Monitor reveals the ugly truth. Exceptional drought, the worst such designation in the Drought Monitor’s intensity scale, increased in coverage from 10 percent of the state last week to 33 percent this week. In addition to the widespread exceptional drought covering virtually the entire western one-third of Oklahoma, extreme-to-severe drought has also shifted back to the east.
The state missed a substantial amount of its normal rainfall during the last 30 days.

Boise City has recorded 2.7 inches of rain in the last nine months.
Guymon has recorded 2.53 inches of precipitation in the last 10 months, according to The National Weather Service. The city had received 14 inches in the first eight months of 2010.
The tremendous early summer heat accelerated the drought’s eastward progress.

Guymon Muncipal Airport’s average high for June was 97.1 degrees through June 24. Guymon had recorded nine 100-plus degree highs through Sunday, peaking at 108 on June 16. The all-time high for Guymon is 111 degrees, which has been set several times.
The drought’s impacts have been enormous, especially in western Oklahoma where damage to this year’s winter wheat crop was widespread. Fire danger, which normally subsides in early spring as vegetation greens up, has continued through spring unabated.
The latest U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook sees persistence or intensification of drought through September for the western one-half of the state.