Warmer Weekend, Colder Again Next Week.

Mighty cold start to our day with temperatures in the teens and even a few single digits around Green Country.  Given how mild last winter was, those numbers qualify as the second coldest readings of the entire year with only Jan 10 being colder and that was with snow on the ground.

[img]

The cloudy skies today have kept us from warming much as well and some locations have not made it above the freezing mark.  So far today, the max/min for Tulsa has been 34/15 as compared to 51/31 for the normal values.

[img]

By the way, this product courtesy of the OK Mesonet, shows how many hours of below freezing temperatures have occurred in the past week along with the coldest readings during that time frame.  Needless to say, it has certainly been cold for the last several days.

[img]

But, that is changing just in time for the weekend as a SE breeze tonight together with cloudy skies will keep temperatures from dropping much below their current readings.  In other words, nearly steady temperatures or only a slow drop is expected for tonight with most locations in the upper 20s to near 30 to start the day Saturday.  If we are lucky we may see a little sunshine Saturday but clouds will be the general rule.  Even so, it will be dry with no mention of rain although the clouds will offset a strong southerly wind component and keep our daytime highs generally in the mid-upper 40s.

Those gusty southerly winds and the clouds will also result in a very mild start to the day on Sunday with steady or even warming temperatures putting us in the 40s first thing in the morning.  Gusty southerly winds will be shifting to the NW late in the day as another cold front moves through the state but temperatures should rise into the upper 50s and even lower 60s despite mostly cloudy skies all day.  This does not appear to be a particularly wet system though with only some light drizzle or scattered showers expected.

Monday and Tuesday will then be cooler, but actually only back to near seasonal levels as the air behind this front is primarily of Pacific origin and not a repeat of the arctic air we have been dealing with in recent days.

But, another round of bitterly cold air appears poised to head our way by the middle of the week with a re-enforcing surge over the coming weekend.  Once again, the long range guidance is all over the place regarding the timing and intensity of this cold air which is not unusual.  Shallow, cold air is often not modeled well, particularly at the longer time ranges which creates considerable uncertainty regarding when and how cold these systems will be for us.

As you can see on our forecast page, am once again taking a bit of a middle ground in that regard in an effort to mitigate the extremes that some solutions would provide.  Even so, the potential exists that on a few days next week temperatures will struggle to get much above freezing.  At least, the data runs to this point are not showing much if any precipitation so little or no wintry weather is currently anticipated, although that is certainly subject to change as better data becomes available in the coming days.

Looking further down the road, the 8-14 day outlook almost gets us up to Christmas and continues to suggest temperatures averaging colder than normal.  That time frame is also starting to show a wetter signal which does not necessarily mean the potential for a White Christmas.  Lots of things can change between now and then.

[img]

[img]

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot