Spring is a season known for its wild temperatures swings, but they usually aren’t this extreme. In a single day, temperatures climbed 60 to 70 degrees in parts of Oklahoma and Kansas. One town even went from a near-record low temperature to breaking the record high. That is nuts.
The weather whiplash was caused by two strong low pressure systems that moved through the Central United States nearly back to back. The first caused heavy snow in the Midwest, tornadoes in the Southeast and torrential rain in the Northeast. Behind it, winds from the north pushed temperatures well below average for this time of year.
Right on its heels, though, the next storm came out of the Rocky Mountains, flipping the weather from wintry to summery, seemingly overnight.
On Tuesday morning, winds were a slight breeze out of the northeast. By 1 p.m. they were out of the south and gusting to 30 mph or more, pumping in hot, dry air from northern Mexico and Texas. The effect on temperatures was remarkable.
Ever wondered what it would be like to go from (near) freezing to triple digits all in one day? The folks in Alva can tell you all about it.
Low of 33° –> high of 101° (!) in Alva today.
Go home, #okwx. You’re drunk. @okmesonet pic.twitter.com/l1QcfzYExW
— Stephen Nehrenz (@StephenNehrenz) April 18, 2018
Alva, in north-central Oklahoma, started the day at 33 degrees just before sunrise. Temperature shot up like a rocket after that, eventually capping out at 101, measured by the Oklahoma Mesonet. That’s a temperature rise of 68 degrees.
Dodge City, Kan., started the day below freezing at 28 degrees — four degrees shy of the record cold temperature for the date (set in 1907). Hot, dry wind gusts out of the southwest peaked at 45 mph in the early afternoon. By 4 p.m., Dodge City climbed to 94 degrees and set a record for hottest temperature on the date. The previous record was 93 degrees in 2002.
Similar dramatic temperatures swings happened all over Kansas and Oklahoma on Tuesday. The hot, dry weather fueled the wildfires burning in the region, which firefighters were struggling to control. More than 300,000 acres have burned in Oklahoma over the past week from the Rhea Fire and the 34 Complex.
PUBLIC SECURITY SECTION 9 AGENT ARAMAKI SAYS; From a somewhat new informant in that general area about 1 to 2 weeks ago, The temps went 106 degrees down to 26 degrees in 36 hours. the source said it happened in 24 hours, but one of his comment writers corrected him in a very polite way. This is again related to the current GSM cycle effects that we are in, If you don”t belive me it is your freedom to do so yet? Go ask the potato farmers on the island of Ballwick of Jeresy of the coast of Normandie, France what it is like to loose between 6,000 to 12,000 tonnes of their crops they send to the U.K. A month of rain, then a month of freezing cold damaged the crops. In other areas it was drought in South Africa and Southern California and hail stones in India and Nepal that did the dirty deed of lowering crop yields. Oh, well look at the time I have to get back to tending the GARDEN so I don”t have to pay 7 yen$ for one, somewhat bland tomato, I make my own!!!!