Brett Winches writes:
> Martin,  How far are you from Moore?  Also are things finally drying out
> there yet?

	Stillwater is about 80 miles North of Moore and we are
still about to drown. It just won't stop.


>  I was amazed last week in central Kansas as it was as wet as
> I have ever seen it this time of year.  On the other hand I have not
> been back in June since 2000.  =20

	Oklahoma had something like either the first or
second-wettest May ever, at least since official records were
kept beginning in 1890-something. It's just horrible right now.
I'd take 105 degrees in the dry shade any day over this steamy
mess. O well, my ground rods are working really well if there
was only something to hear.

	Stillwater, which is about 40 miles South of the Kansas
border, is right on the dividing line between two climatic
classifications. We are on the edge of the climatic zone which
describes all of the Southeastern United states in rainfall and
temperature extremes. Just to our West, however is a zone called
Desert-steppe. Western Oklahoma has salt planes and cactus just
like New Mexico and Arizona. Because of that, Stillwater's
weather kind of behaves like one zone or the other from year to
year. This year, it is tropical rain forest and we are sick of
it.

	Just two years ago, we were dry as a bone and the fire
situation was flat scary every day. The military was helping
fire departments fight daily battles with range fires that
sometimes moved up to 40 miles per hour like the ones you hear
about in California.

	What we need is to be more normal. A little less rain
than the Eastern part of the state and enough for the crops and
to keep the whole world from burning up.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ