After getting off to a comfortable start with slightly above-average rainfall, summer returned with a vengeance to our neck of the woods. Our lawn, once lush with growth, is now mostly brown and crispy underfoot. I cycled home on Thursday evening crossed by a withering, 111 ^oF southerly wind. Friday, our 16th consecutive day with a maximum temperature greater than 100 ^oF, saw the introduction of a statewide burn ban as winds gusted to 25 mph. I crossed my fingers that the firefighters would stay bored, but unfortunately a smoke plume appeared southeast of the NWC around lunchtime.

By 5 p.m., the fire had crept northward toward Lake Thunderbird State Park and expanded. The primary smoke column was crowned by a crisp pyrocumulus cloud – the tallest I’d ever seen at a height of greater than 4 miles. Jim LaDue captured a time lapse video of this pyrocu that clearly shows it pulsing upward in response to the thermal plumes from the fire. (Hard to believe anything could be positively buoyant in this heat, but there you go.)

As evening fell, we saw an orange glow on the eastern horizon, like a false dawn, as we walked our dog around the block. We had “grab and go” bags packed just in case the fire decided to get ornery. Fortunately, it remained well east of our neighborhood. However, several of our friends living farther east, along the south shore of Lake Thunderbird, did have to evacuate for a time. The overnight diligence of firefighters kept the flames off their doorsteps. Other people living farther east were not as lucky.

An even bigger fire erupted northeast of Oklahoma City and destroyed significant swathes of Luther, OK. The outrage over the apparent act of arson that started this fire made national headlines. And the danger’s not over – Another week of 100+ ^oF high temps is on tap, but not a drop of rain in the offing.

Apart from exacerbating the tinder-dry conditions, the hot weather is also impacting local wildlife. In a repeat of 2011, dozens of fledgling Mississippi kites are jumping out of their nests prematurely to escape the scorching sun. Once on the ground, the parents don’t feed them (enough). In our area, these sort-of-orphans typically end up at Wildcare. The kites don’t require much, but the sheer juvenile kite numbers this year (300+), as last year, have overwhelmed Wildcare’s small staff. I’ve volunteered for a few shifts feeding the kites bits of meat with a forceps and spraying them down with a hose to keep them cool. (They don’t mind the jet of water from the hose. In fact, they open their wings to embrace the spray!) Most of them will be ready to release by 1 September.

I grew up in Minnesota, where we have a certain machismo about winter: bragging about how low the wind chill was while we waited for the bus, how tall the snow drifts at the end of the driveway got, etc. Winter is a fact of life, and we’ve learned to live with it, even celebrate it. I’ve lived in Oklahoma for 10 years now, and found the exact same to be true of Oklahomans and the oven outside. Heck, I’ve even come around to join then. (“Whoa, you cycled when it was how hot?”) Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to the more temperate days of fall. Believe me, they can’t come soon enough!