So When Will The First Freeze Happen?
The weather is always such a complicated subject in Southwest Oklahoma. I'm sure you've heard the old joke "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes," which I've now heard in seven different states. Seems that the weather pretty much everywhere is basically unpredictable. In fact, if you're memory is that good, you'll remember that the 50° temps were supposed to be here over a week ago... and it was hot and humid instead.
This cold snap has me thinking about Fall. Not the pumpkin spice and stupid-huge scarf Fall, but cold mornings in a deer blind, no more ragweed allergy type of Fall. We get that ragweed twice every year here in SWOK. It comes sweeping down the plains on cold fronts in late Summer as Northern states enter fall, then it continues as Fall arrives in Texas and the winds resume their normalcy out of the South. It's really not until Halloween that things tend to cool off both weather and allergy-wise. So when will that first freeze actually happen here in SWOK?
It's complicated.
If you examine the almanac, which I'd like to point out has absolutely zero bearing on future weather, we've had our first freeze as early as October 9th. We've had it early on that general date multiple times, but it only represents a possibility of about 10%. Most often, our first freeze happens right around Thanksgiving, although the last few years, we've fried turkeys in shorts and tees. Cool, yes... but not freezing. That trend doesn't bear any weight to the issue either.
The simple truth is, nobody knows what the weather is going to do. Another massive cold front could come sweeping in from Alaska tomorrow and plunge us into a false Winter, but that most likely won't happen. Odds are, while we might actually enjoy a Fall this year, that first freeze will probably happen around Thanksgiving as normal. What do you think?