Sunny & Mild; Until the Weekend.

Still some uncertainty regarding precipitation chances and timing over the course of the weekend and into early next week, but the next couple of days still look might fine. As the minimum temperature map on the right, courtesy of the OK Mesonet shows, we had another cool start to our day today. However, our winds are now back to a more southerly direction and that will help temperatures moderate over the next few days.

After reaching the upper 70s this afternoon, we will see another quick cool down this evening and overnight with temperatures dropping into the upper 40s to near 50 for Wednesday morning. The clear skies and light southerly winds overnight will also result in a heavy dew to start the day on Wednesday. That will be followed by sunny skies again and afternoon temperatures near 80 along with a brisk southerly wind.

Gusty southerly winds for Thursday along with lots of sunshine should push daytime temperatures into the lower 80s after starting off in the lower 50s that morning. By Friday, those gusty southerly winds will finally bring some moisture this way so that our morning lows will be near 60, we will see more cloudiness during the day, and afternoon temperatures will be in the lower 80s. There may even be a shower or two late in the day or overnight, but right now the chances appear rather small with little or no impact on the high school football games.

Saturday will be a different story as a weak frontal boundary will be moving across the state bringing better chances of showers/storms, mostly cloudy skies, and shifting winds. That should hold our daytime highs into the 70s. Also, this system looks to stall out which creates considerable uncertainty as we look on into the Sun-Tue time frame. Some of the longer range guidance is quite wet through this time period, the GFS in particular. On the other hand, the ECMWF has a break in the rainfall for Sunday and into the day Monday before another wet system comes our way later Monday into the day Tuesday.

Both models have been internally consistent with themselves as the GFS has been consistently wet through the weekend and into early next week whereas the ECMWF is wet only on Saturday and is dry for Sunday into early Monday. At least they are consistent regarding a good chance of showers/storms on Saturday, but after that will have to hedge a little and keep at least a chance of some showers/storms for the Sun/Mon time frame due to the uncertainty. Hopefully, later guidance over the coming days will clear up these discrepancies.

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

Dick Faurot