TEXOMA -- As of January 8th all of Texoma was seeing extreme drought conditions. With the recent rainfall and winter precipitation Texoma has seen a little improvement but not much.
"Far southeast Oklahoma has seen about 4 to 7 inches ... so the little bit of moisture down there has improved the drought conditions just a little bit," explains Associate Oklahoma State Climatologist Gary McManus.
So right now despite the recent moisture our area is still mostly the extreme category of drought, though southeastern areas have fallen to the severe category.
McManus says drought takes into account more than just rainfall.
"Many different things: soil moisture, how does it impact agriculture, how does it impact reservoir levels, and just the meteorological aspect .. how much of a deficit is there. All of those things put together give us a picture of drought."
Many area lakes are any where from 3 to 7 feet below where they normally should be and fire conditions still remain a concern despite recent moisture.
Since we are in the winter months right now there is a lot of dead vegetation around our area which is fuel for fire.
"People should still be cautious about doing a whole lot of burning outdoors especially if the winds are high. Big thing is if you are going to burn don't leave it unattended," Grayson County Fire Marshall, Kevin Walton explains.
To get out of the drought, what would we need?
"We still need about double to triple that amount of moisture to come out of drought," say McManus.
The long term forecast from the National Climate Prediction Center is not optimistic right now, but there is hope for the spring.
"We can probably expect our state to be in a drought as we come out into spring and then the spring rainfalls will be crucial to start getting out of this drought," explains McManus.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2013 WorldNow and KTEN. All Rights Reserved.
