Kingfisher County farmers got their plea for moisture partially answered Monday.

A light coat of ice, sleet and snow greeted residents Monday morning as they woke.

Ice formed on tree leaves, fencing, electrical lines and outside containers.

Trees, which were still fully leafed out, sustained heavy damage, as the ice pulled limbs down.

The Mesonet site at the Mueggenborg farm west of Kingfisher registered .34 inch Monday.

Kingfisher Weather Observer Steve Loftis recorded a total of .35 inch of precipitation as of 7 a.m. Tuesday.

The Mesonet reading remained at .34 inch at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday although light freezing rain continued to fall.

Cimarron Electric Cooperative was working to correct a series of outages throughout its service area, Chief Operating Officer Jeff Hyatt said.

Part of the problem was ice damage to Cimarron equipment, which had to be located and repaired, but another was a loss of feed from Western Farmers Electric, a situation which is beyond local control.

At its peak, power was out to 7,500 households, a number that was reduced to 1,866 by Tuesday morning, Hyatt said.

“An ice storm is always like one step forward, three steps back,” Hyatt said. “We get something fixed and the next thing you know more ice builds up and it comes back down.”

The coop is still seeing the benefits of its pole-hardening investment over the past several years.

Not many broken poles resulted from this storm, rather broken cross-arms or downed wires, which are much more easily fixed, he said.

Hyatt urged residents with power outages to report them in one of three ways, either through the website, the coop’s app or via text, if you are set up in the texting system.

“Please don’t report online or through the ‘contact us’ link on our site,” he said. “Time is of the essence and we don’t get that information immediately.”

Hyatt said the coop has requested assistance from sister coops in the eastern part of the state who aren’t expected to be hit by the storm.

It was the first moisture registered in Kingfisher County in October.

The temperature at 7 a.m. Monday read 28 degrees and warmed up to only 32 degrees during the day, according to Smart Phone messaging.

The wintry blast followed a diagonal northeast to southwest route through the center of the state with those outside the path receiving only light moisture.

Washington in McClain County recorded the heaviest reading at 2.86 inches. Shawnee recorded 2.19 inches, Seminole 2.03 inches and Norman 1.76 inches.

Apache recorded 1.71 inches, Medicine Park 1.14 inches and Tipton 1.09 inches. Grandfield in southwest Oklahoma near the Texas border reported 1.48 inches. Miami in far northeast Oklahoma recorded 1.57 inches.

While welcome, the moisture is just a start on what is needed locally to sprout recently seeded grain fields and get them up to a stand and settle the soil around plants in earlier planted fields and get them ready for winter pasture.

All county schools were closed Tuesday, giving most a chance to pivot to the distance learning protocol they had prepared for possible COVID-19 closures.

OG&E reported that 201,000 of its customers across the state were still without power as of 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Just over 1,700 line crew members, tree trimmers and assessors are working restoration while battling the elements.

Crews had restored power for nearly 70,000 customers, even as ice accumulation continues to cause outages across the system.

Ice accumulation on trees with foliage are the primary cause of outages and damage.

Customer Safety Tips:

•Be safe and stay away from downed power lines.

•Please do not approach crews and utility vehicles in your neighborhood. Doing so could jeopardize your safety and will only delay the restoration process.

•Safety precautions should be followed when using a portable generator.

•Check your homes to be sure it’s able to take power.

•For your protection, do not post personal information such as addresses, account numbers, phone numbers, etc. on OGE social media channels.