When Will It Finally Get Cold In Southwest Oklahoma?
As much that 2021 has had in common with 2020, the weather is not one of them.
2021 was hotter this summer and for longer. Of course, we got a huge reprieve from the hottest temps in 2020 thanks to someone lighting wildfires out in California. It blocked out enough of the sun that fall seemingly fell on SWOK in September last year. While we are currently enjoying a mild fall in 2021, it was straight-up cold this time last year.
This time last year, Lawton and much of the region were still recovering from that freak October ice storm that swooped in and damaged so many trees. A year goes by, it was 80 degrees yesterday. Worse yet, without getting that first crucial deep hard freeze, the bugs are going to linger as we pass along into that month between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Currently, in the extended forecast, there is a chance it'll get cold enough to freeze later this week, but even so, it's won't be a cold hard freeze unless something drastically changes.
I know there's probably a majority of people that would much rather enjoy as much of these 70-ish degree days as possible, it would make that heating and air conditioning bill shrink for the time being... but without a solid, deep, lasting hard freeze, those of us with allergies just have to accept life with one working nostril. It's a bummer.
On average, the temperature this time of year in SWOK hovers between the upper 50's and lower 60's during the day, and overnights plunge into the 20's and 30's as Thanksgiving day rolls around. I cannot tell you how many frigid mornings I've spent in a deer blind that four-day weekend throughout my life. These mild falls are enough to drive us all mad.
Weirdly enough, those frigid days usually don't stick around. It's that arctic cold front that makes it all possible. December is usually mild for the most part too, and after a week or two of really cold overnight temperatures, it's a welcome thing... but we can't welcome those mild temps back if the bottom never falls out of the air.
According to the almanac, we should have had our first freeze weeks ago. It averages on November 1st in Lawton throughout the years... Sometimes earlier as was the case last year, and some years we haven't seen a first hard freeze in the 20's until January the following year.
I'm no meteorologist, but anybody can take a guess at what things will do. While I do think it's going to get cold here pretty quick, that first hard freeze most likely won't hit Lawton until the first week of December. It's only a matter of time before average overnight temps in the mid-30's fall lower as the arctic throws everything it has at us.
