Thursday, June 18, 2026 | 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM | National Weather Center 

The Oklahoma Mesonet and the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO) at the University of Oklahoma are jointly hosting a 1-day, in-person, professional development workshop for Oklahoma 3rd-6th grade public school teachers. The workshop will focus on the atmospheric ingredients that can spur tornadoes, plot weather data on maps and graphs, and hands-on activities.

February ended as the warmest on record across Oklahoma, a distinction that also pushed the climatological winter of 2025–26 to its warmest on record. The unusual warmth combined with expanding and intensifying drought to create critical fire weather conditions across much of the state. Those ingredients culminated in a mid-February wildfire outbreak that burned more than 300 square miles and forced evacuations across multiple counties. It was a month defined by record heat, deepening drought and wind-driven flames.

January 2026 delivered a little bit of everything Oklahoma weather is known for — a rare January tornado outbreak, a major winter storm accompanied by arctic cold, and continued drought across much of the state. The month featured both destructive severe weather and prolonged freezing conditions, including one of the most impactful snow and ice events in recent memory. By month’s end, more than two-thirds of Oklahoma was in drought, even as snow cover lingered across the northern half of the state. It was a month defined by sharp contrasts and high-impact weather from start to finish.

If moisture and cold weather topped your December weather Christmas list, you likely didn’t enjoy the lump of coal Mother Nature delivered instead. December 2025 finished as Oklahoma’s second-driest and fifth-warmest on record, dating back to 1895, allowing drought to flourish once again across much of the state. The unusual warmth was especially pronounced during the week surrounding Christmas, highlighted by the warmest Christmas Day in Oklahoma history.

OK-FIRE has rescheduled the Bartlesville workshop. The original workshop was full. With the change in dates several people are no longer able to attend. We have a limited number of open seats.

We ask that if you registered for the workshop back in November, do not register again as this will throw off our counts. Instead send us a note by contacting OK-FIRE staff to let us know whether or not you plan to attend. Help us have an accurate count so we don't have any empty seats.

Each year the Oklahoma Mesonet creates a map showing the most extreme events that were recorded by the network throughout the year. The year was milder than we typically experience, but we identified 12 "extremes":

November 2025 was a warm and mostly dry month across Oklahoma, much like the climatological fall season as a whole (September 1–November 30). Those conditions allowed drought to flourish across the southern half of the state, only a few months after Oklahoma had enjoyed a mostly drought-free summer. The dryness is expected to persist through the end of the year and may even expand. Some rain and bouts of severe weather did occur, including a weak tornado near Broken Arrow on November 20.