How Long It Really Takes Oklahoma to Melt After Snow and Ice

At some point after every Oklahoma winter storm, the same question floats up out of the slush.

When does this melt, and when does life go back to normal?

It doesn't happen when the snow stops falling. Not when the last sleet pellet hits the windows. Normal doesn’t come back until the sun does its thing and Oklahoma remembers how to be Oklahoma again.

Right now, people are a little stir-crazy. An entire weekend locked away and temperatures too cold to get out and enjoy it... Work seems like a treat after being inside all weekend. School too. We all dread the grocery runs, but at least that would be anywhere but home. We’ve all lived this before, and the ending depends on one thing.

The temperature.

In Oklahoma, snow rarely sticks around. Our normal winter snows are here and gone in a matter of hours rather than days. Once daytime highs climb above freezing, even barely, the melt starts fast. Streets go first, south-facing driveways too. That ugly gray snow pile in the Walmart parking lot becomes a shrinking memorial to the immediate past by lunchtime.

Ice is a different animal. It's not fluffy, so it melts much slower, especially on bridges and in the shade. Even after the sun comes back, ice can hang on and reset the danger by sunset. That’s why the state can look fine at noon and treacherous at 7 a.m. the next day.

Normal doesn’t snap back all at once though. It comes in layers. Main roads first. Then neighborhoods. Then the random back road that somehow stayed frozen longer than logic allows. Power crews finish up. Trash pickup resumes. Social media stops posting snow totals and goes back to arguing about something else.

We're expecting another arctic blast, and if you've seen the blisteringly cold forecast, this all might linger on for another week. We will get some semblence of normalcy here and there. The bright sun can melt snow even when it's below freezing, but the freeze/thaw day/night trend over the next few days is going to draw this out for what looks to be another week. At least our wildfire danger will be low for a bit.