Tulsa County ranked 59th wettest year-to-date through September over the past 132 years, with precipitation 1.01 inches above normal, yet drought hasn't let go of the county entirely. Nearly 54.05 percent of Tulsa County remains in moderate drought, while 29.32 percent sits in the abnormally dry category that typically precedes it, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor data compiled as of Oct. 22.
A County Caught Between Record Rain and Lingering Dryness
The numbers come from a Tulsa World report by Corey Jones, a member of Lee Enterprises' public service journalism team, drawing on figures from the U.S. Drought Monitor, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Integrated Drought Information System and the National Weather Service in Tulsa. Tulsa County's year-to-date precipitation through September was 1.01 inches above normal, and September was the 29th driest on record over the past 132 years. Severe drought covers 16.63 percent of the county, while extreme and exceptional drought currently register at zero percent locally.
Zoom out to the rest of the state and the picture looks different. Statewide, moderate-to-extreme drought affected 89.19 percent of Oklahoma as of Oct. 22, according to Oklahoma Farm Report, which also noted that exceptional drought shrank by 9.39 percent in a single week to cover 7.16 percent of the state. That's a sharp turnaround from Oct. 1, when the same outlet reported moderate-to-extreme drought blanketing the entire state and exceptional drought expanding to 24.39 percent amid weeks of persistent heat and limited rainfall — the two reports reflect different weekly monitoring periods, but the gap illustrates just how fast conditions shifted.
What Turned the Tide
The turnaround traced back to a powerful storm system that dumped heavy to excessive rainfall across portions of Texas and Oklahoma from Oct. 13 to Oct. 15, with localized totals hitting 6 to 8 inches in western and central Oklahoma, the same Oklahoma Farm Report piece noted. The relief was significant enough that Oklahoma City's metro pulled in 7.29 inches of rain in a single week, pushing its October total to 8.59 inches and marking the fourth-wettest October on record there, according to KOCO. That station reported the biggest improvements landed in central and western Oklahoma.
Still, nobody in Oklahoma is declaring victory. “There is nowhere in the state that is truly drought free. Several spots have the precursor to the drought, which is considered abnormally dry conditions,” KOCO reported. Statewide, abnormally dry conditions alone covered 10.81 percent of Oklahoma, with moderate drought at 18.32 percent, severe drought at 41.75 percent and extreme drought at 21.96 percent layered on top of the 7.16 percent still rated exceptional.
Looking Ahead to More Rain
Forecasters see more relief possibly on the way. The six-to-10-day outlook gave eastern Oklahoma a 40 to 50 percent chance of rain and western Oklahoma a 50 to 60 percent chance through Oct. 31, the Oklahoma Farm Report noted. Longer range, the Climate Prediction Center's outlook has favored a wetter-than-average pattern for the state in the months ahead, per the same KOCO report.
Back in Tulsa County, the whiplash between wet and dry has become something of a pattern. An earlier Tulsa dry-to-drought report had described most of the county being upgraded from abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions, underscoring how quickly its status can flip from one monitoring cycle to the next.
The U.S. Drought Monitor map behind all these figures is updated each Thursday, produced by authors from NOAA, the USDA and the National Drought Mitigation Center using the best available data and input from local observers, according to drought.gov. For farmers and ranchers, the stakes behind the weekly swings are concrete: drought.gov notes that drought can reduce the water availability and water quality necessary for productive farms, ranches and grazing lands, creating direct and indirect economic impacts across the agricultural sector.
