Showers Expected Across Eastern Oklahoma Wednesday

A weak disturbance is located across the Ark-La-Tex region and will gradually move northward today with more scattered showers and storms developing across eastern Oklahoma by mid morning into the afternoon.  These scattered storms will be capable of cloud to ground lightning and heavy downpours in a few localized areas.  Additionally, one or two cells could produce a quick wet-downburst resulting in strong to severe weather gusts.   This is a typical summer like pattern underway for the eastern Oklahoma region today and tomorrow with highs in the mid-80s.  There will be localized rain-cooled areas that will drop into the 70s today.  Pockets of heavy rainfall may even produce some very localized flooding issues in areas that have drainage issues.  Over 3 inches of rainfall was reported yesterday in a small portion of McCurtain County.  Over half an inch of rainfall was reported near Tahlequah yesterday afternoon with a storm.

WARN Interactive Radar

The upper air pattern still supports a large trough located across the southwestern and western U.S. this morning with a southwest flow extending across the desert southwest into eastern Colorado.  A weak area of mid-level ridging will keep this trough to our west as the upper air feature begins to weaken quickly over the next 24 to 36 hours.  A small mid-level disturbance, mostly in the form of a weak shear zone, is forecast to move across eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas today helping to develop more scattered storms by midday to afternoon.   Most of the scattered storms will dissipate with the loss of daytime heating but one or two cells may survive overnight into Thursday morning before the rinse and repeat cycle occurs from Thursday midday to the afternoon.  The coverage may be slightly lower Thursday compared to the expected coverage today, yet we’ll keep the same pop in place for both days at this point.  

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The ridge will flatten and slide slightly southwest Friday helping to create a northwest upper air flow that will brush northern Oklahoma Friday into at least Saturday, and possibly Sunday.  This pattern is notorious for bringing storms into the state from the northwest, yet most model data output keeps the chances relatively low.  We have elected to keep the pops at 20 to near 30-percent for Friday and Saturday based on the pattern and some minor signals in the data.   At this point, the extended Holiday period looks warm and muggy with THI values in the mid to upper 90s.  A few isolated pop-up storms will be mentioned for Sunday and Monday.  We’re still a few days out and this period may undergo some changes. 

Some, but not all data is suggesting a low-pressure area may develop across the southern Gulf region over the next few days while moving northward.  The data is widely varied with the outcome of this feature with some data bringing the low near the southern Louisiana region Saturday and others are west near Cuba.  Obviously, a large spread in the data.  Regardless, it’s the wild card for early next week. 

Thanks for reading the Wednesday morning weather discussion and blog.