Milder Monday & Tuesday, Heating Up After That.

The map on the right is an update of the 24 hour rainfall totals around the state, courtesy of the OK Mesonet. Count your blessings if you were among the lucky ones that received a decent amount of rain over that time frame. It still appears that after tonight, our chances of additional rainfall will be in the slim to none category for the coming week.

The soil fractional water index at 2" is the other map on the right and it shows that our soils are already drying out in many locations. This is not a good situation as May is when we usually count on getting the soil recharged heading into the hotter, drier summer months. By the way, we have mentioned on several occasions that May is normally our wettest month of the year, but I need to also mention that June is normally our second wettest month of the year. Things really start drying out as we head into July and August. Hopefully, we will get a break and June will bring some badly needed rains as we will certainly need it.

As mentioned above, except for some lingering showers and possible thunder overnight tonight, the chances of additional rainfall are pretty slim for this forecast period. And, any rains tonight will likely be confined to the more southern counties so most of us will miss out on that as well.

As the soils dry out and the vegetation follows suit, that also means temperatures will be warmer than they would normally be. In fact, after a couple of mild nights and days, look for temperatures to be soaring later in the week.

Monday morning will start off in the 50s at most locations; lots of sunshine during the day will overcome a NE wind and we should make it to near 80 that afternoon. Those numbers are pretty close to normal. Tuesday morning will likely be even cooler with light winds, fair skies, and good radiational cooling allowing temperatures to drop into the lower 50s and possibly even some upper 40s in the normally cooler valley locations. Sunny skies and a SE wind should result in a rebound back into the low-mid 80s that afternoon.

After that, gusty southerly winds, lots of sunshine, and a building ridge aloft will all combine to push out daytime highs back to near 90 and quite possibly the lower 90s going into the coming weekend. Our nights will also be getting much warmer so the air conditioner will definitely be welcome by later in the week.

As for our next decent shot at some showers or storms, there are some indications another front may arrive after Memorial Day, but that is certainly subject to change. In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot