I agree the drought is deepening rapidly. I feel it in the yard and in the fields. I hope this weekends rain is the beginning of regular water.

The weeds and grass in the back yard are nearing 2' tall as natural cover with a mowed path surrounding, because it was dry and to heal because it was the garden area. Then, we got rain. It's a jungle that will go right into the compost pile.

I must get, at least, one swale dug into the slope. We are right on the zone line and drought can take a short leap to consume us.

I am kicking myself for not watering this morning, but I kept hoping the prediction for rain today was correct. I need to get up early tomorrow and get it done!

I just gave up and watered the fruit trees this week, figuring the rain in the forecast wouldn't happen at all or would fall in such a small amount that it wouldn't be enough anyway. I am not watering the garden at all any more. I may have watered it once in earliest September, but then...in the face of deepening drought....I just said "good bye" to the garden and stopped watering. If it dies, it dies. I still am getting peppers, tomatoes, southern peas and some squash but I just go in there, harvest, and leave. It is too dry for it to look good and too dry for even heavy watering to do much good, and too snakey to weed it, so I just harvest and then ignore it. I'm waiting for cooler weather to drive the snakes underground before I do the garden cleanup.

Finally got some rain here in Durant. My poor winter squash was taking a beating these last couple of weeks.....

Yay! I'm glad you got it. The heavier rain missed us but Tim said it fell in Marietta while he was in town this morning and it was moving east, so I figured that Madill and Durant might get some good rain.

It was bad enough when we went back into the yellow zone (D-0, "Abnormally Dry") which isn't really drought---it is just pre-drought---so soon after all that flooding. I kept thinking that surely some rain would fall soon and we'd never progress into actual drought itself. Then, the rain did not come, and we quickly progressed into Moderate and then Severe Drought.

I feel kinda baffled that flash drought developed and got us so quickly after three successive rounds of severe river/lake flooding from May through early July, but I have been watching the flash drought progress towards us from LA and NE/E TX for most of the summer, so I did know it was coming. In that sense, it was not a surprise because I watched it creeping closer and closer every week.

I just hope the wet autumn weather materializes as expected and puts a halt to all the drought conditions, and the abnormally dry conditions, too, before it gets any worse. The farmers need to be able to get their wheat planted. Oh, and canola too, in the areas where it is planted in the fall.

Even though the rain has mostly missed our place so far today, we still might get some later today or tonight or tomorrow. Any rain at all is better than none, and at least we have cloudy skies and cooler temperatures.

We missed again. Not a drop!!!!

60-80% chance for Southern Oklahoma, today!! That probably means more like 30-40% lol Hopefully, everyone will get a decent amount. It's raining horses and wagons here, right now. Massive temp drop.

It isn't the percentage that bothers me so much. It is the amount. That 60% doesn't mean much if the storms only drop a few one-hundredths or even a tenth of an inch or two. We need inches, not hundredths or tenths. (sigh) The temperatures will be milder, so at least there's that. Maybe things will be better in October.

Our average rainfall for September is right at 4" and almost every year we are just barely hanging on to what little hope remains.....if the September rains will fall, the grass will green up, etc., and the farmers can plant their winter wheat and it will sprout and grow. The ponds will catch a lot of runoff and go into winter with water in them. All summer long, September sits out there in the future like a beacon of hope, encouraging us to hang on through summer drought and then relief will come in the fall. When the expected September rains fail to materialize, everyone starts getting a little antsy.

So far this September, we're at less than an inch in most parts of the county, and some areas are far less than an inch. It seems unlikely we'll get our September average of 4". I'll be thrilled if we end September with 2". Barring a miracle, that isn't even going to happen. Maybe we'll manage to at least get an inch for the month of September, if it rains today and gives us a few tenth of an inch.

Oddly, as the drought has gone on, the wildlife has disappeared, other than cottontail rabbits and white-tailed deer. I haven't seen a possum, coon, skunk or armadillo in our yard in several weeks. I haven't seen but one snake, though I did find a snakeskin a couple of days ago. I haven't seen a vole, a bobcat, a fox or a coyote in weeks. It is so very peculiar. Usually when we dry out, a huge influx of wildlife becomes increasingly active near the house looking for food. It is all backwards this year. As the drought has worsened, they've gone away. Even the bird population has greatly diminished. Some parts of Texas near us got 1-2" or more of rainfall about 10 days ago when we got our wonderful, glorious 0.6+". Maybe all the wild critters swam across the Red River and went to Texas.

The last two months have been tough on many parts of OK, but at least now some folks are getting some relief in the rainfall. Here's the 60-Day Rainfall Map:

Observed Rainfall: Last 60 Days

And here's is what that rainfall looks like as a percentage of average rainfall for the same time period:

Last 60 Days Rainfall As A Percentage of Normal (30-Year-Average)

I'm thinking our September rainfall fell in June and we're just mostly going to have to go without rain for the rest of the month.