As you may recall, the NewsOK.com Digital Desk released some clickbait a few weeks ago titled "5 Things Only Oklahomans Will Understand." The first item the list was "Oklahoma Weather." Here's What Richard ViralNovaBuzzfeedHall to say:
Oklahoma Weather
All of you native Oklahomans are nodding your head right about now, aren't you?
In one day, Oklahoma can experience blistering heat, bitter colds and blinding storms. We live in a state where seasons don't mean a dang thing, but we're OK with that.
When we threw together our own list of 5 Things Only Oklahomans Will Not Understand, I made fun of Richard ViralNovaBuzzfeedHall's observation by including Vermont weather. Yes, Oklahoma weather suffers from a chronic case of ADHD and changes its mind about as often as an indecisive fat man at Cheesecake Factory, but just about every person in every midwestern or northeastern state thinks they have wild, unpredictable weather. Why would only Oklahomans understand it? Like most NewsOK.com clickbait, it didn't make any sense.
Although I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, it looks like Richard ViralNovaBuzzfeedHall (that's his new nickname, in case you didn't notice) was onto something. Earlier today, hipster stat god Nate Silver released a study today that analyzes "Which City Has The Most Unpredictable Weather?"
Via Five Thirty Eight:
Most every American has some basis to complain about unpredictable weather. As a mid-latitude country with shining seas and majestic mountain ranges and fruited, wind-swept plains, we’re subject to pretty much every type of weather meteorologists have thought to identify. So perhaps you’ve heard the line: “If you don’t like the weather in Chicago, wait five minutes.” Or you’ve heard it applied to a city nearer to you: Denver or San Francisco or Atlanta or Boston.
But where in the country is the weather truly the most unpredictable?
We’re going to answer this question in a specific way, by comparing daily weather patterns against long-term averages. We’ll define the weather as being more unpredictable when it deviates more from these long-term trends.
Look at that! Nate Silver agrees with me! There's a 94% chance that's kind of cool.
At that point, Nate Silver did the long, boring, statistical "how we calculated this crap" preamble that drags down just about every Five Thirty Eight post. Let's just cut to it. Here's the Top 10 major cities in the US with the most unpredictable weather:
1. Kansas City, Missouri;
2. Oklahoma City;
3. Minneapolis;
4. Cincinnati;
5. Indianapolis;
6. St. Louis;
7. Birmingham, Alabama;
8. Boston;
9. Milwaukee;
10. Dallas
Wow. Kansas City has us beat. First they remove Oklahoma from the name of their amazing BBQ place, and now they're stealing our title as the craziest weather place on earth. Assholes.
I should clarify that the top 10 list only includes the 50 major cities in the US. If you expanded the rankings to second-tier cities that no one wants to voluntarily live in, Oklahoma City would rank 26th. Tulsa, though, would be 17th. That's right. Tulsa has more unpredictable weather than Oklahoma City. It's good to know they're finally better than us at something that doesn't involve trees, scenic hills and PGA Championship Golf Courses.
Anyway, you can check out the entire study at Five Thirty Eight. As I mentioned, they spend a lot of time explaining the methodology. I'd probably just wait until Richard ViralNovaBuzzfeedHall produces a slide show of 10 animated gifs that portray the unpredictable Oklahoma weather.
