Possible Freeze Tonight.

Last night’s storms turned out to be some real trouble makers, particularly with respect to hail.  Notice this photo from Newson6 storm chaser Darren Stephens from the Ft Gibson Lake area; needless to say hail of that size can do some real damage.

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Narrow strips of locally very heavy rainfall also fell in a rather short time frame but not where it is most needed. 

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Drought continues to rear its ugly head for our more western neighbors.

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Today’s gusty northerly winds have brought cooler, drier air back over the state and clear skies.  Those clear skies for the overnight hours along with light winds will result in temperatures dropping off very quickly.  Many locations will be at or just below the freezing mark and where temperatures do not reach freezing, there will still likely be a good bit of frost.  Accordingly, the good folks at the local NWS office have issued a freeze warning for the more N and NE counties, but as mentioned frost is a good bet elsewhere.

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Higher level clouds will be quickly returning during the day Friday with partly cloudy to mostly cloudy skies expected by afternoon.  Our winds will be returning to the SE and increasing to 10-15 mph but the optical thickness of those high level clouds will likely offset the southerly flow so daytime highs will generally be in the low-mid 60s; in other words pretty close to normal for this time of year.

Saturday will then be mostly cloudy and warmer with brisk southerly winds as you can see on our forecast page.  There will also be a chance of drizzle or a few light showers by early morning, particularly for the more northern counties.  Despite the cloud cover and any light showers, temperatures should make it to near 70 during the day.  Another cold front will be arriving that evening/night followed by brisk northerly winds and much cooler conditions for Sunday.

That front will also bring a chance of showers and even some thunder for Saturday night, with some lingering light rain or showers into the Easter Sunday morning time frame.  The system responsible for this will quickly move on eastward so the rain is expected to have ended by the noon hour followed by rapidly clearing skies that afternoon.  However, gusty northerly winds throughout the day will keep us much cooler with morning lows in the 40s and daytime highs in the 50s.

After another cold start to the day on Monday, temperatures will once again rebound going into early next week with lots of sunshine and a return to southerly winds.  However, yet another storm system will be approaching Wednesday with increasing cloud cover and another chance of showers or storms.  The cold front associated with this system will move through by early Thursday followed by clearing skies, brisk northerly winds and another cool-down.  However, this cool-down does not look to be as dramatic as what we have experienced recently.

Even so, looking further down the road continues to keep us with a cooler than normal signal in the 8-14 day outlook.

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So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot