THE WEATHER BEAT · OCT 20

On this date in 1983, six Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle gauges recorded their wettest day, led by 10.6 inches at Shawnee

On October 20, 1983, six gauges in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle recorded their wettest day on record, led by Shawnee at 10.6 inches.

By the Weather Rock October 20, 2026, 7:26 a.m. · 3 min read

GOES satellite view of the event region — Afternoon satellite view of Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle on October 19, 2026, the region where six gauges recorded their wettest day on October 20, 1983. Image: NOAA GOES-East GeoColor via NASA GIBS, 2026-10-19 21:00Z.

Key points

On this date in 1983, six gauges in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle in our NOAA station archive each recorded their wettest day, led by Shawnee, Oklahoma, at 10.6 inches.
Roosevelt measured 8.4 inches and Chickasha 7.3 inches that day, with Slick, Willow and Childress, Texas, between 5.3 and 6.1 inches.
Every figure here comes from our archive of NOAA daily station records. We cite no weather system and no damage, because the archive does not carry either.

Forty-three years ago today, a rain gauge in Shawnee, Oklahoma, caught 10.6 inches in a single day. In the record we keep for that gauge, no other day measured more.

It was not one gauge. Southwest of Shawnee, the Roosevelt gauge measured 8.4 inches on October 20, 1983, and the Chickasha Experiment Station gauge measured 7.3 inches. Farther north, the gauge at Stroud, which serves Slick, measured 6.1 inches. The Willow gauge measured 5.8 inches. Across the Red River, in the Texas Panhandle, the Childress municipal airport gauge measured 5.3 inches. Each is the wettest day in our archive for that gauge.

The gauges sit along a line of roughly a hundred miles of Oklahoma and reach into Texas. Our archive says how much fell and where it was measured, nothing more. It does not say what caused the rain or what the water did, so this story does not either. October is a wetter month on the southern Plains than its reputation suggests, and these six gauges say that once, it was very wet.

Date	Town	Gauge (station)	Wettest day
Oct 20, 1983	Shawnee OK	Shawnee (USC00348110)	10.6 in
Oct 20, 1983	Roosevelt OK	Roosevelt (USC00347727)	8.4 in
Oct 20, 1983	Chickasha OK	Chickasha Exp Stn (USC00341750)	7.3 in
Oct 20, 1983	Slick OK	Stroud 3 N (USC00348563)	6.1 in
Oct 20, 1983	Willow OK	Willow (USC00349668)	5.8 in
Oct 20, 1983	Childress TX	Childress Muni Ap (USW00023007)	5.3 in

*Source: myweatherrock's archive of NOAA daily station records (GHCN-Daily station IDs shown).*

This is a look back at a historic weather day, not emergency information. For current conditions and warnings see weather.gov and your local officials.

The rock's live forecast for the places in this story