Brrrrrrrrr!!!!!

In case you are wondering, the last time we had an ‘official' hourly observation that was above freezing for Tulsa was at 7 PM this past Saturday evening. We have been at or below freezing every hour since then and are not likely to get above the freezing mark till sometime Thursday afternoon. Another interesting statistic is that as of this morning, 71.1% of the lower 48 was covered by snow and/or ice. Notice the image on the right which shows at least some snow on the ground in every state except Florida as of early this morning.

Ok, so when are we going to warm up you ask? Well, I hesitate to use the term warm up as it does not appear likely that we will even get above normal during this forecast cycle, but at least we will not be as cold. Morning lows early Thursday will likely be the coldest so far this season with widespread single digits and perhaps even a few below zero readings in the normally colder valley locations. After that, we will have a cold south wind of 8-15 mph by afternoon which should get us at least up to the freezing mark if not a few degrees above.

The southerly winds will moderate temperatures further by Friday and Saturday before the trusty crystal ball starts becoming very fuzzy. As Alan mentioned in his excellent morning discussion, there is considerable uncertainty regarding the weekend into early next week as the longer range guidance has been even more inconsistent than usual. That leads to a very low confidence forecast for Sunday and Monday as daytime guidance temperatures range anywhere from the 50s to the 30s during that period along with the potential for precipitation. As Alan mentioned, so far we have opted to go with the ECMWF as our model of choice which is a cooler solution as you can see on our graphical forecasts. However, given the uncertainties in this pattern, most anything is possible.

So, in the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot