Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Record Rainfall For Oklahoma City

May of 2013 has seen a record eclipsed in the OKC area with over 14.52 inches of rain. Ponds are full, lakes are full, rivers are flooding! At the rate things are going, we'll hit our annual precipitation total by the end of next week because more heavy thunderstorms and rain are forecast starting Monday night......Almost three years of drought and now this.

There's a theory out there that climate corrects itself over time with a 180 degree shift. Not just a return to normal right away. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the theory.

I hope all are OK friends are doing alright. I talked to my son in Edmond early this morning and he said they just got lots of rain -- again.

I don't think I could deal with the OK City weather. I'll take blizzards and occasional thunderstorms any day, compared to the many kinds of weather our friends in TX and OK experience year around, and year after year.

Stay safe.

Ken, I lived in Edmond for a couple years back around 1986,87. Seemed every evening during the summer there were tornado watches scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen in the evening.

My brother and I would grab the binocs and climb up on the roof, which was easy, trying to spot a tornado. We were young then and were hoping to spot one.

Fortunately we never did.

Alan,

I was handcuffed, detained, and nearly arrested for doing something like that when I was about 22 y.o. I was using a camera instead of binoculars.

I'd been in the Navy for a little more than a year when I was sent to an east coast government facility. Growing up on the shores of Lake Superior, I'd never experienced lightning storms like we have here in this area.

They had me living in a two story brick building on the facility grounds. I found access to the flat roof. The main building where we worked was like a lightning magnet. It was about a quarter mile away. I wanted pictures of the lightning hitting the building. I think it was about the third or fourth storm when security got me. They were convinced I was a spy. I finally convinced them I was just a simple mid-western farm kid -- but, they still took my film. I never went back up on the roof with a camera.

Ken

That was probably the only excitement those security guys got. You made their day Ken.

I once got some university cops excited when I walked into an undergrad under age dorm party from the grad dorm I was staying in with a styrofoam cup of beer. I think they lost interest when my drivers license said I was in my mid 20's. They still tried to scare me but I knew better. About as silly as being threatened to be sent to Ft. Leavenworth for not shaving in basic. Never mind I needed to shave twice a day but wasn't allowed to. It was all I could do not to bust out laughing when I pictured someone asking me what I had done to get to Ft. Leavenworth.

I was stationed at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma in 1953-1955. There was a terrific rain. I know this couldn’t be right but as I remember hearing over the radio there was 7 ½ inches of rain in 35 minutes. In all my long life I’ve never heard any thing close to that so I no doubt heard it wrong. However the rain was so bad that the helicopters on base were rescuing people from their farmhouses that were surrounded by water. All roads in and out of Oklahoma City were closed. A few days after the rain a group of us drove up to OKC to see what was going on and bulldozers were dozing mud from the still closed highway we were on at the outskirts into OKC.

While stationed at FS I remember a small town in Northern OK by the name of Blackwell I think, that was wiped out by a tornado and finding only a dog alive. That’s my memory anyway. What did strike me back then in the countryside were all the tornado shelters consisting of a large mound of dirt with a doorway going inside.

John, weather in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas has been and always will be a challenge.
Exactly ten years before your “deployment” at Ft. Sill, I was stationed at Smoky Hill Army Air Base, near Salina, Kansas.

The winter was brutal year 1943 - never saw the snow covered ground all winter!
Tar paper barracks - pot bellied coal stove - snow blowing though cracks - near froze to death even sleeping in everything I could put on..

Exactly 10 years later after WWII and college on GI bill, doing O&G Exploration work in central OK, witnessed the tornado in Blackwell that you mentioned.
Looked like Hiroshima….

Seen lots of “funnels” but never caught in one - prayers for all the recent victims.
George

I am glad to hear that the PB members seem to be coming through this in one piece. With the drought you all have been having, getting this rain has to be welcomed, perhaps just not like this though. Here's to the weather calming down so people can begin cleaning up the mess and get on with their lives.

Rain

Most in one minute: 38 mm (1.5 in); Barst, Guadeloupe, 26 November 1970.

Most in one hour: 305 mm (12.0 in) in 42 minutes. Holt, Missouri, United States, 22 June 1947.

Most in 12 hours: 1,144 mm (45.0 in); Foc-Foc, Réunion, 8 January 1966, during tropical cyclone Denise.

Most in 24 hours: 1,825 mm (71.9 in); Foc-Foc, Réunion, 7–8 January 1966, during tropical cyclone Denise.

Most in 48 hours: 2,467 mm (97.1 in); Aurère, Réunion, 8–10 January 1958.

Most in 72 hours: 3,929 mm (154.7 in); Commerson, Réunion, 24–26 February 2007.

Most in 96 hours: 4,869 mm (191.7 in); Commerson, Réunion, 24–27 February 2007.

Most in one year: 26,470 mm (1,042 in); Cherrapunji, India, 1860–1861.

Highest average annual total: 11,872 mm (467.4 in); Mawsynram, India.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Rain

Cool stuff Cecil.

I just hope I never see a 15" Snowflake!

I could handle a 15" snowflake, it's not gonna hurt you... Now a 7" hail stone, that's gonna leave a welt!

George I guess my memory isn't so bad after all. Thanks for looking up the record rainfalls and remembering Blackwell.

My service was nothing like yours but the coldest I ever was....on constant maneuvers for two weeks in the snow...wore everything I had...slept, ate, sh#% in the snow...constantly setting up and then breaking down and on the move again, night and day. Feet never got warm.

My brother in-law, a geo-physics’ was also in oil & gas exploration and at Midland, TX for a long time then lived at Katy and Rock Port and ended his career as a consultant in India.

Hey John, we could tell some stories - right?
We called a “geo-physics’ DOODLEBUGGERS back in the good ole days……
I’m an Emeritus member of The Society of Exploration Geophysicists,
Lived in Houston, Midland, Tulsa, back to Houston, and settled in Plano……after a couple of years in the field - Rockport was my favorite - good fishin’….

Most folks don’t know that Texas Instrument parent company was Geophysical Service Inc.

My career spanned the digital era and now “frackin”…most fun working for myself as O&G Exploration Consultant.

Thanks for the memories,
George

I well remember those good old days of doodlebugging, having worked on a crew during the summer of 1952, hustling three inch casing, pump, dynamite, drill bits and Stillson wrenches through neck-deep water in the swamps of the Atchafalaya Basin from shot point to shot point. We'd drill down 130 feet turning the casing with Stillson wrenches, set the charges, string a jug line and let 'er rip. For a young farm boy, it was a piece of cake.

Dudley I have been around the swamp and oil business all my life. Even roustabouted some as a youngster. Never witnessed what you described but was aware it was done. I have wadded the swamp plenty but never with pipe and wrenches attached. Sounds like a way to become gator bait.

Eric, in the days of absolute invincibility, gators were not so much as an afterthought, although I saw none. There were many snakes, but no concern there. Now, if I had been exposed to a huge swarm of two roaches, I'll say that I would not have put myself at risk of being devoured by those nasty things.

Hey Dudley, do you remember the name of Company?
I was Party Chief for the old National Geophysical Company at the time of your “experience” working swamps, in-land bays and waters of Gulf Coast Texas and Louisiana.

Boats and winch boats, swamp buggies – airboats – you name it.
Started out as “jug hustler” summer job while in college…
These were the only old photos I could find…..











Talk about hi-jacking a thread – back to the weather…

George, I don't remember the name of the company but it had what I think was a field office in Franklin, LA.

We left from a small settlement named Calumet and went north up Wax Lake Outlet, continuing north across Six Mile Lake. Six Mile Lake and Grand Lake were really lakes then.

Our crew chief was some aged geezer who had to be at least 23 or 24 years old.

Could that old arthritic have been you, George?

Naw - I was over-the-hill geezer 27 years old......those were good old days but wouldn't want to do again....
I have found that many successful professionals began their careers with “mud on their boots“.
G/

Yer right, George.

I suppose if you're dipped in mud enough you finally decide that there has to be a better way.

Good days though.

Practical experience involves hard labor. Oil field and farming count double. Cutting right of way is up there also.

We picked up another 1.20 inches of rain from thunderstorms that rolled through around 05:20 this morning...... Wow! My pond is still down about 5ft., but with the rate things are going, it'll be bank-full by the end of June.