The Impact of Oklahoma's Winter Wheat Belt on the Mesoscale Environment

Abstract

Oklahoma Mesonet data were used to measure the impact of Oklahoma's winter wheat belt on the mesoscale environment from 1994 to 2001. Statistical analyses of monthly means of near-surface air temperatures demonstrated that 1) a well-defined cool anomaly existed across the wheat belt during November, December, January, February, and April, and 2) a well-defined warm anomaly existed across the wheat belt during June, July, and August. Data from crop year 2000 indicated a slight moist anomaly over the growing wheat from November 1999 through April 2000. In addition, based upon 21 000 daily statistics over eight unique years, statistical computations indicated less than a 0.1% chance that the moist anomaly during March resulted from random chance.