Hey Dawn, I had a lay over in the Dallas Fort Worth airport yesterday. When we fly in there, I thought of you and your family, as it looked like there had been rain. The surest way for us to have heavy weather is for me to leave home for a week or two and leave the family.

George
Tasquillo, Hidalgo Mexico

George,

If you'd needed a police officer (DH) or a firefighter/paramedic (DS) yesterday while at D/FW, you might have met either my hubby or son. With their odd rotating shifts, it is a rare occurrence for them both to be there on the same day, but yesterday they were.

I don't think they had rain because both were there and neither mentioned it. Texas has had horrible grass fires this week that have burnt thousands of acres, destroyed 8 homes and about 20 outbuilding, 5 hunting cabins and 10 vehicles, and took 1 man's life. So, I know everyone in Texas is praying for rain, watching the skies and hoping.

I hope you have a safe and productive trip and then return home safely to your family. I wonder how bad the ice will be while you're gone? I hope it misses y'all in Tahlequah, but the forecasters seem to think it really is going to hit. How many more of these ice storms can the surviving trees take?

Dawn

Guess we should just thank the Lord for what ever we receive , because we shur cant change it.

Dry here also and on the burn ban too.But having cattle i sure dont like ice.But we need moisture in any form we can get it i guess.

Going into spring with a dry winter sure isnt a good sign. Hav't seen a mud hole in i dont know how long.

I have a page marked that some maybe interested in, it's the burn ban page.
It has changed several times lately. I hope they keep it this time.

Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Burn Ban

Dawn and River, Thank you both for the links.

According to the NWS, looks like I'd better bring some more firewood up where it will stay dry. Doesn't seem to take much weather of any kind (sun, rain, clouds) to result in the electricity going off.

I hope everyone gets some much needed moisture, without the hassle of a heavy ice storm.

Stay safe everyone.

Michelle

River,

I look at that page several times a week.

One day our county "fell off the map" and I mentioned it to DH and he called our county Emergency Mgmt director who HAD faxed the current week's resolution to the Forest Service. They were able to re-fax the form and make phone calls and get the website updated before everyone in our county went wild and started burning stuff. (We already have enough wildfires and don't need more.)

Even though we have been under a burn ban continuously since November here (and should have had one starting in September), people STILL go out and burn brush or trash and start fires that sometimes get out of control and burn a lot of acreage. Our county's law enforcement officers do issue citations for burning during a burn ban (sometimes), though, so that is a good deterrent.

Back in November, there were just a couple of counties with burn bans, but I see the numbers increasing every week. That is true of Texas as well, where most of the state is much drier than we are.

Michelle,

Glad the links are helpful. I watch the weather like a hawk because it is such an integral part of gardening (and living) in this state.

We have the tiniest bit of non-freezing drizzle here this morning and a temperature of 34 degrees, so trouble seems inevitable. It's nice to have even a miniscule amount of moisture falling, but we need a real downpour, and I don't think we'll get it in southern OK. Still, this is our best chance of moisture in 3 or 4 months. We'll take what we can get.

I hate to jinx our family by saying this, but we've lived here for ten years and have never lost power for more than an hour or two, and only a couple of times.....maybe once every 3 years or so......and, always, during a very severe thunderstorm or with high winds exceeding 50 mph.

I have to pat our local electric (Red River Valley REA) co-op on the back. They make a tremendous effort to keep the trees trimmed back from the power lines, and to keep the poles in great shape, and it pays off, I think, in that we have very few outages. It is a huge investment of time, money and effort on their part and I appreciate that they are so pro-active. I know that is has to be hard for a relatively small co-op to spend that kind of money keeping trees away from the power lines, but it sure pays off. When I hear the news about people in Oklahoma being without power for days, or even weeks, I feel so awful for them and, at the same time, so grateful that we have been spared such disruption to our lives here.

I'm afraid it is going to be a rough 2 or 3 days here in our state.

Dawn

I just came in from topping off the bird feeders and bringing up some more firewood and it is trying to drizzle here. The temperature according to my Weather Channel desktop (not sure how accurate it is) is 32.

Living in OKC for so long, I was used to getting fairly accurate and relevant weather info from the news and The Weather Channel. Here though, our local weather comes from Ft. Smith, Arkansas and they don't dedicate a lot of time to Oklahoma until it is already bad and The Weather Channel comes via satellite, so it's not very local specific.

I have come to rely a lot more on online resources, so I 'm always grateful to have new sources and sites to use.

From what I have seen, I too am afraid it is going to be a rough few days for much of our state. We can hope we're wrong though, right?

Michelle

We have a thin glaze of ice on everything now. It's been misting since about 9:00am. I moved the last few Large cuts of Bois De Arc into the greenhouse a few minutes ago to split later. Was wanting it to stay dry. The seat of my pants stuck to the mower seat. :-)

Took my Eskies out a few minutes ago. They both weren't ready for lack of traction on the drive and looked a little silly for a few seconds until they got on the grass.

I rarely rely on telivision for acurate weather. They get me in the ballpark. I can then make educated guesses as to what it's really going to do here.

Internet has always (at least the last 5 years) been much more accurate than the professional weather guessers on the tube.

randy

It's nasty here too, in Shawnee. Thin layer of ice on everything... DH almost took a tumble down the stairs outside while unloading sheetrock (we're trying to finish our house), so they laid out moving blankets to be able to haul stuff inside, LOL.

Our 6 month-old puppy is driving everyone crazy, and we can't put him outside because it's too cold and icy out! :-(

I really wish we'd been able to get the wood stove/chimney put in before one of these storms, so let's hope the power holds!

I hope the perennials survive this okay - they never went into complete dormancy, so...

Everyone stay safe! (AND, hopefully warm!!)

Ada

It is slick in my driveway now. My husband is on his way home. Everyone at the office was sent home. I called and rescheduled my eye exam.

Be very careful if you have to get out.

Moni

Michelle,

It is 3:35 p.m. and I am watching The Weather Channel and it sounds like Arkansas is really getting it already and conditions are supposed to worsen, so I guess the Fort Smith forecasters may "ignore" ya'll even more if you're not having the ice too.

Yes, we can hope we're wrong, but "in my bones" I feel like it is going to be a bad one. I can tell by the number of birds coming to feed, and we have huge numbers today. I just refilled the feeders and put out deer corn an hour ago, and the birds are having a big old pre-storm feeding frenzy right now.

Randy and I both use the Weather Underground a lot and I love their forecasts. If you've never used it, you can access it via www.wunderground.com.

Randy,

I agree about the internet accuracy, but I have to say that our local TV forecast (Channel 12, KXII, the local CBS affiliate) has improved a lot since Steve LaNore became their chief meterologist. Still, I take it with a grain of salt and merge together their forecast, various online sources, the NWS and my own "intuition" to arrive at my own idea about what I think "will" or "might" happen.

I bet the Eskies had fun. If it snows, and they get to go out and play in it, I hope you'll take a photo of them to share with us.

Ada,

Uh-oh. That's not good news. Y'all be careful.

I think the perennials will be OK as long as their roots weren't bone dry. If they were bone-dry, you might have some root death.

After all my bragging about what a fine job our local electric co-op does keeping the power up, I saw we're now forecast to get about 1/2 inch of ice here. Well, if that happens, the trees won't even have to bring down the poles and power lines, because the ice on the power lines will bring everything down all by itself. Oh, I dread the power being out. Our house is all-electric, so if we lose power, we're gonna be cold.

Moni,

I'm glad you're hubby is going to be able to make it home safely before the icing gets worse and the roads are even more dangerous.

We went out and did all our errands early. Now we're just waiting for the fire pagers to go off, because as soon as the temps hit 32, the accidents start popping up on the Interstate like dandelions pop up in our pastures in spring.

I don't really understand the sudden ice storm trend the last 5 or 6 years. Our first few years here, we had some gorgeous snowstorms and that was so much fun for someone like me who grew up in snow-deprived Fort Worth. These last few years, though, it is all ice and no snow. I'd rather have snow. Well, if I had a choice, I'd rather have 6" of rain and nothing frozen, but that's not gonna happen!

Dawn