Wheat Crops In Oklahoma And Kansas Remain In Fair To Good Condition Despite Warm, Dry February

Feb 28, 2017

February was extremely warm and dry for Oklahoma. A few rain storms in the middle of the month did little to ease the drought or high temperatures. According to the OCS Mesonet, 2017 was one of the hottest Februarys in Oklahoma’s history.

Conditions of small grains were rated mostly fair to good. Winter wheat grazed reached 65 percent, up 15 points from the previous year Rye grazed reached 70 percent, down 1 point from the previous year. Oats grazed reached 70 percent, up 44 points from the previous year.

Temperatures ranged from 8 degrees at Boise City on Saturday, February 25th to 99 degrees at Mangum on Saturday, February 11th. Precipitation ranged from 0.16 of an inch in the Panhandle district to 3.08 inches in the Southeast district. Soil temperature averages ranged from 34 degrees at Kenton on Friday, February 3rd to 63 degrees at Hugo on Sunday, February 12th. Click here for the full Crop Weather Report for Oklahoma.

Click here to see more...

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.