We just had hot with a chance of heat and humidity.

Sucked.

It was so muggy.

Well it's raining pretty good now. Power was out for about half an hour. And my cell phone was dead as a doornail. I'm really dependent on electricity!

As hard as it rained, I only got about a quarter inch. Mesonet said .3 which is pretty close. I didn't empty the gauge and there is 1/2 inch in it. At least I won't have to water anything except the chickens.

I think we got about an inch here in Claremore.

Today wasn't so bad until the sun came out. Unfortunately it came out pretty early and after that all we had was heat, humidity and a high heat index. I'm over August (even though it is wet) because it is too steamy. I want to skip September because it stays too hot. I want to go straight to October. So, tomorrow at my house, I am going to pretend it is October 1st when I wake up (who needs the end of August and all of September?) and make cocoa and maybe pumpkin pie muffins and it is going to be so cool and so wonderful (in my mind), at least until I walk out the door and get slapped in the face by heat and humidity.

Seriously, here's the rainfall from the last two days:

Two-Day Rainfall

And, from the last 30 days:

30-Day Rainfall

And, here it is as a percentage of normal for the year-to-date:

Year-to-Date Rainfall Expressed As A Percentage of Normal

On the YTD map, almost everyone (but not my area, which almost surprises me because I was hoping the recent rainfall had brought us up to average) is above average for the year now. That's really good for this time of the year and it is really surprising considering how bad things looked a couple of months ago.

Jay, It is a rare year for y'all. I don't know if I've ever heard you say you have had 20" of rain in one year---and there's months to go yet. That is really exciting. It is exciting you are in the 160% rainfall area. That is so cool. Back in 2015, our rainfall was about 200% of average which was far too much, and we had massive flooding and we had plant diseases and we had onions and potatoes rotting in the garden, so I don't really ever want that much rain again....it was just mind-boggling. The Red River was so high that the water was lapping at the bottom of the I-35 bridge and there were a few points where we feared the water might come over the bridge and cause them to shut down the bridge, but it never did. Why can't rainfall here come in normal regular amounts instead of always being either too much or too little?

I will be hoping that you don't have a cool fall so that your crops can last as long as possible. I, however, would love a cool fall down here. We were too hot all of last autumn even well into December. It feels like forever since we had real winter weather here. I'm going to forget what snow looks like.

The butterflies and hummingbirds are loving the weather right now. We have so many hummingbirds that I think the migration south must be underway already. That sort of makes me feel sad. I haven't seen any purple martins this week, so they may be heading south already. It also is possible they've just taken to the woods to get out of the heat. The last Purple Martin babies started flying in July, so their houses have been abandoned ever since then, but for a while they still were flying over the house and garden daily and I haven't seen them do that in a couple of weeks now.

With all the rain, we now are really greened up and it looks more like May outdoors than August. I hope all this rainfall gives us pretty autumn foliage this year whenever autumn finally does arrive.

Dawn

It looks like most of the northern half of OK is going to get some rain this morning. I could use some up here. We have some hit or miss showers forecast tonight but I usually get the miss rather than the hit on those.

The forecast here for the solar eclipse on Monday is partly cloudy with a 40% chance of rain in the morning. I took the day off and plan to drive with some friends about 1 hour NE from my house to a conservation area along the Missouri river where the totality will last for about 2.5 minutes. There is a severe shortage of the eclipse glasses around here but I managed to snag a pair on Wednesday so I'm good to go.

It looks like most of the northern half of OK is going to get some rain this morning.

Well I guess not...where did all the rain go? It was there just an hour ago. lol

Purple martins are coming together in huge flocks right now preparing to migrate. They used to roost in downtown Tulsa in mid August. Something happened and they've moved their roost to the airport. This worries me, as the previous flocks were so thick they could be seen on radar. They forage widely during the day and come together to roost at dusk.

Jack, LOL. Our weather does that. Rain and storms appear out of nowhere sometimes and can disappear just as quickly.

I hope you enjoy your eclipse viewing trip. You'll have to tell us all about it after you get back. Hopefully the clouds will stay away!

Amy, At D-FW they have had to do bird abatement for years, though maybe not every year. I'm not sure if they have done it this year, and I don't know if they'd do it with purple martins. I guess they would if there were enough birdstrikes going on. This year, D-FW's problem has been feral hogs gathering near Trigg Lake, which is a manmade drainage lake. I think the drainage system from the runways empties into it. It really has turned into a little ecological jewel over the decades, but I don't think they ever thought feral hogs would show up. Suddenly, bird problems don't seem so bad.

This weather is crazy. I think the birds don't know whether they're coming or going. Mourning doves are flocking here now, and still no sign of our purple martins. I wonder if the dramatic cool-down and arrival of the rain a couple of weeks ago made them think we were having an early autumn?

Tim saw a flock of geese yesterday. When he told me that, I said "Flying south?" and he said "Nope. East." So, I don't know if they were migrants, or just locals perhaps flying from the wild bottom lands along the river maybe over to the Hagerman Wildlife Mgmt Area near Lake Texoma. Last year we saw geese flying south incredibly early (at least two months early, perhaps almost three) so we are watching for them this year.

Dawn

Dawn - plan A for the eclipse had to be scratched because some storms showed up in the KC area and they were trending to the north and east of the city in late morning. We ended up staying home until the skies finally cleared at about 11:45 when the eclipse began. At about 12:10 we hopped in the car and drove to a friends house about 20 miles to the NE. When we arrived there it was still overcast but by about 30 minutes before totality the clouds cleared and we got a perfect view of the eclipse. Totality only lasted for a little over one minute but it was spectacular!

The April 8, 2024 eclipse will be very close to your area and for most of SE Oklahoma. I recommend that anyone who hasn't been in the path of a total eclipse try to do so. It is truly awe inspiring. I would try to get to a spot that gets the longest period of totality. We are already making plans to travel to my nieces house in Fort Worth for the 2024 eclipse.

Here are a couple pictures my son took of the totality

Garden pictures · More Info

Garden pictures · More Info

Nice photos. I am sure we will drive to somewhere that will have 100% totality in 2024. We have family and friends all over the metro area, so it would be a cinch.

elkwc,,Im looking for tomato seeds to the variety Make My Day,,Can you help?

Pappabell I don't think I have seeds for that variety. I have seeds for several varieties including some that are very hard to find but not that one.