Rainfall Does Little To Dampen Oklahoma Drought

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) Long-term forecasts give Oklahoma a 40 percent chance of a wetter-than-average winter, but that might not be enough to break the state's ongoing drought.<br/> <br/>A recent report

Saturday, December 30th 2006, 7:43 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) Long-term forecasts give Oklahoma a 40 percent chance of a wetter-than-average winter, but that might not be enough to break the state's ongoing drought.

A recent report by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey indicates that December's rainfall may reflect the start of a wet winter.

As of Saturday, the Oklahoma City area had received 2.02 inches of rain in December, more than the area's 1.79-inch average for the month, the National Weather Service said.

A rain storm that passed over the state Friday and Saturday dropped more than 2 inches of rain in Gage and almost 3 inches in McAlester, forecasters said.

December's rains already have brought some parts of the state close to breaking the drought, at least for the next few months, according to climatologists Gary McManus and Cerry Leffler.

The problem is, they said, prolonged drought has left the soil so dry that none of the rain is accumulating in lakes and streams as runoff. Instead, it is soaking down into the parched soil.

Jack Carson, spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, said he is not holding out much hope that winter rains will break the drought.

"The chance of us receiving the amount of rain needed for us to
recover by springtime is fairly remote," Carson said.

Although recent statewide rainfall have helped, storms would have to dump an equal amount of rain on the state every week to completely break the drought, Carson said, noting that some areas of the state are behind by 8 to 16 inches of rainfall.

Historically, western Oklahoma sees less than an inch of rain in January while the southeast might see up to 2 inches, according to climate survey data. In February, the odds are, the western half of Oklahoma will see more than an inch of rain.

Significant rains generally begin to arrive in March and could be amplified if a weather pattern known as El Nino -- a shift in the ocean atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific -- persist.

"If El Nino could bring any additional rain, I think it would be terrific," Carson said.

Oklahoma's weather forecast has a lot to do with what has been going on during the past week near Ecuador and Peru, where warmer than average waters have blown in from the tropical Pacific due to El Nino.

The seasonal weather pattern crops up about every three to seven years. This year, El Nino's effects will fall in the weak to moderate category, said Vernon Kousky, a research meteorologist for the Climate Prediction Center.

Although its effects are sure to be felt in parts of South America, the impact in Oklahoma is a little tougher to predict, Kousky said.

In general, strong El Nino conditions mean wetter winters for Oklahoma and the southern plains. In a weak system like the current one, the odds are a little less certain.

"It's really just a slight shift in the odds toward wetness that we are forecasting," Kousky said.