TRANSCRIPT:
LOGAN LAYDEN: Gary, I first want to ask about the drought situation in Oklahoma currently. We’re seeing some spring storms, but the past few months have been dry and historically warm.
GARY MCMANUS: It’s not just the dry weather that has compounded our drought problems across the state, it’s also that heat. If you look at — our winter was the warmest on record. We also had the warmest February on record. The warmest March on record. In fact, every period from March all the way back through July was the warmest on record. So you combine that historic warmth with near historic dryness — historic dryness at times — and you really come out to what we have now, which is really bad drought across much of the state, and especially across western and up into central Oklahoma.
LAYDEN: I understand from talking with you so much that’s at least partially due to the La Niña cycle we’ve been in, which brings warmer, dryer conditions. But that’s changing. We’re seeing forecasts about the possibility of getting a super El Niño later this year. Let’s define that, how rare is that?
MCMANUS: Right. Godzilla El Niño, which is what people were calling our 2015-2016 El Niño, which was the strongest on record — at least dating back to the last 50 or 60 years or so. And you look at some of the previous two or three that have occurred before that. So it is sort of a rare occurrence. It’s basically how warm those waters off the west coast of South America down close to the equator get. So how much above normal they are. If they get about 2 degrees centigrade and above there, that’s when you start to see what’s called the super El Niño, or, famously, the Godzilla El Niño.
LAYDEN: And that really helped us back ten years ago to break that terrible drought we were in, right?
MCMANUS: We ended up with the wettest May on record in 2015, and that was actually the wettest month in Oklahoma history, that May of 2015. We also ended up with the wettest year on record in 2015. So that Godzilla El Niño — super El Niño — did help end that 2010-2015 drought, which was so terrible, probably the worst drought we’ve seen in Oklahoma since the 1950s.
LAYDEN: So El Niño, for Oklahoma, generally means cooler and wetter conditions. And so, even more so during a super El Niño?
MCMANUS: It doesn’t mean we’re going to see stronger impacts necessarily, which for our part of the country would mean a cooler and wetter cool season. So, again, you’re talking mid-fall through about mid-spring. It could be a little bit longer than that. It just depends on the actual episode. But it does mean that those impacts would be a little bit more likely.
LAYDEN: When will we have some certainty on that? Are we going to get this super El Niño? When will we know that for sure?
MCMANUS: Well, you know, if you really want certainty, that’s when it actually starts to happen — this super El Niño. But we should get a pretty good idea as we start to get into summer, so June, July, that type of timeframe, what exactly is going to happen, at least, you know, are we going to have a La Niña, El Niño. But El Niño is obviously very favored right now. But we’ll know more once we start to get into the summer months.
LAYDEN: In the meantime, drought is ongoing in many parts of the state. Do you see that breaking before we start to see the impacts of a potential El Niño later this year?
MCMANUS: We just really need that green up to occur. We’ve gotten some good rains across the state. But that western Oklahoma area, where it still looks like winter out there, the fire danger will continue until they get rainfall and they can actually green up that vegetation and have it come out of winter dormancy. So we’re just hoping for some rainfall to spread to the west finally, and maybe they can tamp down on that fire danger a little bit.
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