Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Still Cloudy, Cold; Slight Chance Wintry Precipitation

Another dreary, short thermometer day, as you can see on the max/min temperature map, courtesy of the OK Mesonet. The overcast skies and a relatively weak easterly wind combined to keep the cold air in place - and that will be the case through the overnight hours. In fact, very little change in temperature is expected tonight due to the low cloud deck and the fact the dew point temperature is close to the current air temperature, so we are nearly saturated.

Of course, that also leaves open the possibility of some drizzle or a light mist overnight and into the day tomorrow. That, in turn, could result in some patchy slick spots on elevated surfaces as temperatures will be flirting with the freezing mark tonight.

As we go through the day Thursday, a weak storm system will be moving over the state keeping us overcast and switching our winds back to a northerly direction at 10-15 mph. That will keep temperatures in the 30s throughout the day, but limited forcing aloft will only produce some very light drizzle, mist, or perhaps a wintry mix for some locations ending Thursday night. Again, amounts will be very light, so no accumulations are anticipated, but be aware of the potential for a few slick spots on elevated surfaces.

That system will be strengthening as it moves on eastward Friday, but we will be on the backside by then, so we expect to be dry. However, the clouds will be slow to clear, and with a gusty N wind it will still be cold with morning lows in the 20s and daytime highs in the upper 30s.

After that, the weekend still looks promising, with partly cloudy skies on Saturday and partly cloudy to perhaps mostly sunny skies on Sunday. A light north breeze will be returning to a southerly direction during the day Saturday and becoming rather gusty on Sunday. That combination will help to warm things up with morning lows in the lower 20s Saturday morning and near freezing Sunday morning.

Better yet, daytime highs will be well into the 40s Saturday and well into the 50s Sunday, as you can see on our forecast page.

Not for long, though, as another storm system will be moving across the state Monday, but current indications so far suggest this system will be moisture starved. So, just a slight chance of some precipitation will be carried for Monday, although some of that may be in the form of wintry precipitation.

It will also be turning cooler with a return to northerly winds which will carry over into the day Tuesday. That will be followed by another warm-up along with more sunshine by the middle of next week.

As you can see on the 7-day QPF map, even though we have several chances of precipitation, any amounts will be very light for our part of the world with much heavier amounts further east and along the W coast. In other words, we will be largely between the big weather makers over the course of this 7-day period.

Looking further down the road, the 8-14-day outlooks continue to suggest the absence of any really cold air coming our way anytime soon and temperatures are expected to average above normal over that period. However, there is also a signal suggesting some additional storm systems coming our way off the Pacific so the potential remains for that to be a rather unsettled period as well.

In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot