2022

December provided a fitting end to Oklahoma’s tumultuous 2022 weather story. This final chapter came complete with a half-dozen tornadoes, the coldest December day in 32 years, and the finishing touches on an all-time Oklahoma rainfall record. The Oklahoma Mesonet site at Goodwell finished 2022 with 6.48 inches of rain, breaking the previous all-time lowest annual rainfall record for any location in Oklahoma of 6.53 inches from Regnier in 1956. Those data go back to the late 1880s.

Oklahoma’s extended spate of warmer than normal weather—which began in early June and continued largely uninterrupted for the next five months—came to an abrupt halt on Nov. 10 following a clash with the season’s first true arctic cold front. Highs in the 70s and 80s those first 10 days of November were soon replaced with highs in the 40s and 50s, and low temperatures below freezing more often than not. Any hint of a return to the weather’s previous mild ways was quashed by recurring cold fronts throughout the rest of the month.

Drought held on through October in Oklahoma for the fifteenth consecutive month, its roots dating back to August 2021 and boosted by additional flash drought conditions beginning in June 2022. The drought’s severity and coverage peaked in mid-October, its impacts varied and extreme. Dead and dormant vegetation led to almost daily fights with wildfires for fire departments in all regions of the state.