Cold & Wet Expected Friday Across Eastern Oklahoma

The forecast scenario hasn’t changed much concerning the next few days as a developing storm system approaches the state.  We’ll be expecting pleasant yet cool weather again today with morning lows in the 20s and 30s and afternoon highs in the lower 50s with light winds and sunshine before clouds arrive Thursday and rain follows Friday.  A cold and wet day will be likely Friday across the state and the Tulsa metro.  Late Friday night into Saturday morning a few locations to our north or east may see rain briefly changing to snow before the precipitation quickly ends.  The higher chances for impactful wintry weather will occur to the east and northeast of the metro.  

The upper air flow will bring two disturbances across the region later this week that will combine to produce the Friday and Saturday system.  A trough dropping across the intermountain region in the northern stream will move across the central plains with a disturbance in the southern stream influencing our weather Friday into Saturday.  Pressure falls will lead to evacuating mass and will cause a surface area of low pressure to develop across the Odessa-Midland basin Thursday and move eastward across central Texas Friday while exiting far east Texas Saturday morning.  Moisture will be drawn around the system into Oklahoma Friday with rain likely, including the potential for some pockets of moderate to heavy rainfall across far southern Oklahoma Friday afternoon or evening.  Locations across northern Oklahoma will be in the running between 0.60 and just over an inch of rainfall.  As the system exits, colder air will be dropping down the Midwest with the weekend taking a turn back into winter with morning lows in the 30s and highs in the lower 40s. 

As the system begins ending Saturday, the temp profile may support a wintry mix by late Friday night into Saturday morning to midday, mostly across extreme northeastern Oklahoma into northwest Arkansas with surface temperatures remaining well above freezing.  Air around 5000 ft will be near freezing or slightly colder allowing for a possible change to some wintry precipitation.   As it stands now, locations across southern Kansas, southern Missouri and extreme northwestern Arkansas would have the better chance of accumulating snows.  There could be some wintry weather right along the northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas state line region.  We may see some mixing of precipitation types late Friday night into Saturday morning near the metro, but the odds of impactful wintry weather in the metro continue to appear low.  This upper air pattern is typically not associated with big winter weather events across Oklahoma. 

After a cold weekend the pattern should bring a moderating air mass into the state early next week with highs eventually reaching the mid-50s once again.  Most of next week appears to be dry.

Thanks for reading the Wednesday morning weather discussion and blog.