Warm & Windy, Chance Storms Today.

Notice the QPF map on the right, valid through this coming Sunday morning. It is painting a very broad area of potentially heavy rainfall with the main axis primarily over central and western OK and then northward from there. Am hoping and praying that does indeed verify as our more western neighbors are still in desperate need of rainfall. Keep in mind this is a generalized, areal estimate of the rainfall potential for that seven day period. Locally heavier amounts will certainly be possible. Also, that does not necessarily mean it will rain every day; in fact, our best chance for showers/storms still looks to be along about the Thu/Fri time frame for this side of the state.

For today, there is a 100% chance that it will rain here in E OK, but the areal coverage is expected to be on the order of 20% for most of us; thus, the forecast will carry a 20% chance that any one location will receive measurable rainfall. A weakening disturbance aloft will be responsible for a better chance for the more SE counties where the chances of any one location getting wet will be closer to 40%.

A strengthening inversion aloft, or capping inversion, should eliminate most if not all chances of rain for the Mon-Tue time frame. Thus, Memorial Day itself should see more sun than clouds and warm, windy conditions. Speaking of the wind, look for southerly winds to be in the 15-25 mph range this afternoon with higher gusts in the more western counties and 30 mph or more for Monday and Tuesday. In fact, some gusts may be close to 40, particularly for those counties just NW of Tulsa so the next few days look to be warm and windy.

Cloud cover will the limiting factor regarding how warm our daytime temperatures will be. Partly cloudy to mostly cloudy skies this afternoon should hold our daytime highs into the low-mid 80s. Monday should see more sunshine so mid-upper 80s are expected and much the same for Tuesday. Then, clouds will be on the increase through the rest of the week along with the increased chances of showers/storms and that should keep daytime temperatures somewhat in check with daytime highs in the low-mid 80s. Normal daytime highs by the end of the week would be around the 83 degree mark so we will be at or a bit above normal pretty much all week long. Also, temperatures will be in the 60s to near 70 each night through the coming week.

Back to our rain chances; a rather potent system will be affecting the weather for the Plains States starting out west on Wednesday and then more into our area for Thu/Fri. This will not only bring increased chances of showers/storms by later in the week, but there will also be an increased potential for severe storms. A trailing cool front now looks like it will stall out just north of us going into the coming weekend so at least a chance of lingering showers/storms will likely persist going into the coming weekend as well. Bottom line is that the latter part of this week could get rather interesting.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot