Cool weather helped keep severe weather at bay in Oklahoma throughout much of April. A late spring freeze—damaging in its own right—punctuated the scarcity of severe weather during the month’s first three weeks. The cold eventually gave way to an emphatic exclamation point, however, when tornadoes, flooding, high winds, and a hail-borne catastrophe struck during April’s final week. At least four confirmed tornadoes touched on April 28, including an EF-1 twister that struck near Pauls Valley at the stroke of midnight.

The first month of spring greeted Oklahoma with warmer and more tranquil weather than the historic cold and snowy February that preceded it. While March offered up momentary glances of nearly every weather hazard in Oklahoma’s arsenal, the month was most often quiet.

Oklahoma experienced a historic cold air event during February, boosting the month into the company of other legendary frozen periods from calendar pages long torn away and discarded. February 1895, February 1899, and January 1930 all suffered through exceedingly long cold spells. More recently, December 1983 still lives in the minds of many Oklahomans as the bellwether of cold months, which followed those winters of the late 1970s when bone-chilling cold was simply a way of life; but those cold times were more than 37 years ago.

The winter storm that began the year captured January’s biggest weather headline. The event straddled the changeover from 2020 to 2021, with as much as 10 inches of snow falling in Vici on New Year’s Day. Reports of 4-8 inches were widespread across the northwestern half of the state. Seasonal totals through January climbed to nearly 3 feet across northwestern Oklahoma. The National Weather Service cooperative observer at Arnett reported 34.3 inches since late October, 24.1 inches more than their entire normal seasonal total of 10.2 inches.

A powerful winter storm pounded the state on 2020’s final day, a fitting epitaph to a tumultuous year—and a wintry December. The storm lasted into the first morning of 2021 and brought widespread totals of 2-6 inches of snow from southwestern into northeastern Oklahoma. Localized areas in central Oklahoma reported up to 10 inches of snow. The storm was the last in a series of four impactful winter systems that struck the state during December, and the fifth of the season. The month’s first storm dumped 10-15 inches of snow in far northwestern Oklahoma between Dec. 2-3.

OSU News and Information

https://news.okstate.edu/articles/agricultural-sciences-natural-resources/2020/stotts_cattle-comfort-advisor.html

MEDIA CONTACT: Donald Stotts | Agricultural Communications Services | 405-744-4079 | donald.stotts@okstate.edu

November’s weather struggled to live up to the level of excitement provided by October’s historic cold snap and ice storm, although it had its moments. Following that burst of moisture just before Halloween, some areas of the state went more than a month without seeing at least a quarter inch of rain in a single day. Other areas saw Oklahoma’s weather at its worst, however. Storms on the 24th brought severe weather back to the state with damaging winds and hail up to the size of golf balls. At least two tornadoes touched down that day in southeastern Oklahoma.

A historic winter ice storm struck the state during the last week of October, leaving nearly 400,000 residences and businesses without power. The extreme nature of the event – arguably the most impactful early-season winter storm in the history of Oklahoma – was punctuated by heavy snow in the Panhandle and flooding rains in eastern sections of the state. Trees, still burdened with a full head of leaves so early in the season, were easy prey for radial ice accumulations of up to 3 inches across western and central Oklahoma.

Spring 2021 OK-First classes for public safety officials are now open for enrollment! For just the second time in program history all of our classes will be held online. The classes will be self-paced and open for a specific set of weeks and include:

• 1 Certification class (6 weeks in length)
• 1 Assistant Certification class (4 weeks in length)
• 2 Re-certification classes (2 weeks in length)

A historic cold snap set the tone for a cool September, which saw one of the earliest intrusions of winter weather in state history. An unusually strong cold front blasted through the state September 8-9, sending temperatures plummeting up to 50 degrees lower than the previous day’s highs. Lowest maximum and minimum temperature records were shattered across the western half of the state. High temperatures on the ninth struggled to a chilly 40 degrees at Boise City and Kenton following lows of 33 degrees.