Warm And Muggy Ahead Of Weekend Storms Across Oklahoma

The focus will be the storm chances tomorrow afternoon and evening, including some significant severe thunderstorm potential, before exiting the area late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.   The second half of the Memorial Holiday weekend appears pleasant with mild and dry conditions.  The pattern will change again for the middle of next week with additional storm chances returning.   The upper air pattern will transition to a typical early summer flow by the end of next week into the first full week of June.  Right on schedule for some nighttime MCS highway action.

WARN Interactive Radar

And speaking (writing) of MCS, complex is located north of the area this morning, moving rapidly eastward across central Kansas.  This is the one I thought might have a small chance (10-percent) at getting into far southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma early this morning.   Looks like it’s staying north even though a few showers may develop along a southward moving outflow.   The odds will remain around 10-percent.

Weather Alerts

Today we’ll get even warmer with highs in the upper 80s and lower 90s along with increasing low level moisture.   Most data support heat index values nearing 95 to 99 across the region along with sunshine-cloud mix and southwest winds around 10 mph.   A front is nudging southward and may stall across far northern Oklahoma this afternoon with a dry line around the I-35 corridor region.   The layer of warm air aloft ( the CAP) is expected to remain very strong and probably will not allow for thunderstorm activity this afternoon or tonight.   But I think it’s prudent ( GHWB) to keep a slight mention of storms in the forecast for this afternoon or evening across eastern Oklahoma just in case one can take root.  If this happens, it would be severe.

Stay Connected With The News On 6

The better shot will be Saturday afternoon and evening as the thermal structure in the upper atmosphere will change as a disturbance nears the area.   The frontal boundary-dryline and surface low are expected to be near central and eastern OK with extreme convective-potential energy in place across eastern Oklahoma by the afternoon and evening.   Storms are likely to develop in a few spots and would be explosively severe with very large hail and damaging wind potential.   The super cell modes during the early evening hours would support tornado formation with some local boundary interaction.   Eventually a small complex ( or two) is likely to develop and surge southeast late Saturday night into pre-dawn Sunday with a damaging wind threat along with heavy rainfall.   It appears the system will be out of here by pre-dawn Sunday with improving conditions until about Tuesday or Wednesday when a weak front will surge southward with additional thunderstorm chances through the end of the week.

Please remain aware of your weather surroundings Saturday afternoon and evening.

Thanks for reading the Friday morning weather discussion and blog.

Alan Crone