I'll be honest with you, I thought 2021 was going to be the year Southwest Oklahoma eluded the drought, but as dry conditions continue, things are looking bleak.

Think back to the start of the year. Average rain in January, that freak snow and ice storm in February, and the sky poured each month after through summer. When have you ever seen green mountains in the distance during any of the summer months in years past? It was a weird summer for sure.

I can't tell you how much I hated mowing grass in ridiculously hot July and August. Every time I thought I was done mowing for the regular bermudagrass summer dormancy, it'd dump another few inches of rain on us and everything would green up and start growing again. Honestly, we've mowed more this year than a few past years all combined.

August was the turning point for us here in Southwest Oklahoma though. That's when the heavy rains wrapped up and things started to do the extreme in the opposite direction.

We had one day of rain in August here in Lawton, and it was a doozy. Dumping a little over an inch over the course of a few hours, it made the grass pop and gave mowers a reason to mow, but that might actually be the last time I mowed my grass.

The rains very soon dried up, and even though we've had a rainy day here and there, the amounts of precipitation were low and evaporation most likely took the lion's share. We've been well below average for rain since then. In fact, if it weren't for that seven-tenths Medicine Park got in November, it would have been a 100% dry month.

As it stands, Lawton and the immediate surrounding area is drought-listed as Moderate, and the further West you go on US-62, the worse it gets.

While most of us were complaining about the rains back in May and June, we're at the point we really need a little.

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