Oklahoma baked beneath a relentless sun during the third-warmest and fifth-driest August on record. Vegetation withered and turned yellow, ponds dried up, lake levels fell and wildfires flared across the state. By month’s end, drought covered all of Oklahoma—more than double its coverage just four weeks earlier—as flash drought ran amok.
Tuesday, September 29, 2026 | 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM | National Weather Center
Thursday, November 12, 2026 | 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM | National Weather Center
Mother Nature supplied fireworks of her own on July 4 as a destructive windstorm swept across Oklahoma, with Norman hardest hit. The month closed under a punishing heat wave, with widespread triple-digit temperatures during its final third. Between those dramatic bookends, rainfall fell short across most of the state and drought coverage held nearly steady at about 44%, setting the stage for heightened drought concerns in August.
OK-FIRE is pleased to announce its fall workshop schedule, which will consist of three in-person options in Guymon, Durant, and Mustang and one virtual option.
June’s severe weather story was not led by tornadoes, but by straight-line winds. A powerful derecho and several other intense storm events produced six of the Oklahoma Mesonet’s top 50 all-time wind gusts during the month, including three triple-digit readings.
May brought an abrupt slowdown in tornado activity after a historic start to 2026. The year opened with January tying its monthly tornado record, followed by a record-setting March and an active April that pushed the preliminary annual count to 57 by the end of that month. May is normally Oklahoma’s most active tornado month, averaging 32.7 tornadoes since 2000, but the month produced only two official tornadoes, both on May 27 in southeastern Oklahoma. The record fewest for May is zero, set in 2005. Another possible tornado near Hobart remained under investigation.
As a first step in the process of updating the OK-First webpage, today we transitioned to a new homepage for OK-First that better fits the theming and layout of the Mesonet webpage. If you have difficulty finding any content, please don't hesitate to reach out to us via email at okfirst@mesonet.org! Additional future changes will include an all new Member Portal section (password-protected) as well as a newly re-designed OK-First Weather Briefing Page (password-protected). Stay tuned!