Football double header today so no early evening newscast. Provides a rare, but pleasant break during the day and just now getting the blog taken care of.
To begin with, the cloud cover today was thicker and more extensive than anticipated so another short thermometer day as you can see from the max/min map on the right courtesy of the OK Mesonet. The clouds will persist through the night tonight keeping temperatures from cooling much more than the lower 60s to start the day Monday. Also, our winds will remain light and variable through the overnight hours and quite likely through at least the morning hours of Monday. Without an advection pattern that accompanies stronger winds, we will likely keep considerable cloud cover into the afternoon hours of Monday as well. However, I do expect to see more sunshine than today and that should bring temperatures to near the 80 degree mark if not the lower 80s.
Our next cold front now looks to be somewhat delayed than what was indicated just 24 hours ago so we should have generally light winds into the afternoon hours of Monday before the stronger northerly winds behind the cold front spread over the state during the evening and overnight hours. The lack of convergence along the frontal boundary also keeps our rain chances with this particular system on the low side and will maintain only a 20% chance of any one location receiving measurable rainfall.
Brisk northerly winds will continue into the day Tuesday under sunny skies. The day will start off on the cool side with lows in the lower 50s followed by a daytime high in the mid 70s. Wednesday will also start off on the cool side but a return to southerly winds and lots of sunshine should get us back to near 80 that afternoon.
After that, the longer range guidance continues to have issues regarding how to handle the stronger N and NW flow pattern that will be developing aloft. There are some indications that a weak boundary may make it to about the OK/KS state line on Thursday before becoming diffuse followed by a stronger cool front arriving later on Friday. That is the general trend I have followed this forecast cycle which would also suggest another cool-down and sunny skies in time for the coming weekend.
The second map on the right is the QPF map which is valid through this coming Friday. It also suggests we will be on the dry side through that time frame. However, there is by no means a consensus among the longer range products on this particular scenario, so it remains a rather low confidence forecast at this time.
In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.
Dick Faurot
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