Tuesday Morning Update

We're looking at a very nice weather day across the state with high pressure at the surface along with afternoon highs in the lower 70s.  Light winds will be common along with abundant sunshine.  Our next storm system will arrive sometime Thanksgiving Day with a chance for a few showers.  A more significant cold front may arrive early next week bringing a much colder air mass to the state Monday evening into Tuesday. 

Our first issue is patchy fog.  The light winds and clear sky are allowing temps to drop to the local dews and humidity values are climbing this morning creating some patchy fog.  There may be a few spots with locally dense fog until 9am.  Please use caution.  

The weak wave that crossed the area yesterday is well east of the state and we'll be expecting sunshine and pleasant weather today and tomorrow.  The surface pressure gradient will increase tomorrow and south winds will be increasing in the 10 to 20 mph range Wednesday.  Morning lows in the 40s will be followed by highs in the lower 70s both today and tomorrow.  

The timing of the Thursday system continues to suggest a late day or evening frontal passage.  The current timing would suggest the boundary entering the Tulsa metro around 10pm and clearing southeastern OK before dawn Friday.  The surface instability factor will be limited, but there could be some thunder along with a few showers.  The low level moisture depiction in the model data supports local dews in the lower 50s by Thursday.  The depth of the moisture is not expected to be significant but some showers and a few rumbles of thunder seem likely across portions, but not all, of the area.  We'll continue to keep the mention around the 30% pop at this point even though GFS output would suggest a higher coverage, and we'll also continue to refine the timing with subsequent forecast cycles.  

The temps will drop around 8 to 10 degrees with the Thursday system meaning Friday into the weekend will be closer to normal with highs in the upper 50s or a few lower 60s.  No precip is expected Friday afternoon or this weekend, but another stout storm system may approach early next week. 

As I stated yesterday morning in the blog, I think the upper air pattern will be changing early next week allowing for the polar stream to migrate southward.  This will drop the westerlys closer to the southern and central latitudes and give the state a chance of a few cold air intrusions.  The upper air pattern may transition to a northwesterly flow aloft pattern for a few days next week which would help to circulate some cold Canadian air southward through the Missouri Valley and into Oklahoma.  The snow cover across portions of Canada and the extreme northern part of the nation is above normal and would also play a role in cold air production across the northern latitudes.  Basically we may be in store for a cold air intrusion early next week with a "more active pattern" for the days that follow.

Our official high yesterday in Tulsa was 72 at 2:53pm.

The normal daily high is 59 and the low is 38.

Daily records include  81 from 1989  and a low of  16 from 1937.

You'll find me on Facebook and Twitter.

http://www.facebook.com/AlanCroneNewsOn6

Twitter  @ alancrone

Thanks for reading the Tuesday Morning Weather discussion. 

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone