Showers & Storms Possible Mid-Week For Eastern Oklahoma

Cool weather remains this morning with most locations reporting the upper 30s and lower 40s along with clear sky and light south winds. Highs this afternoon will move back into the upper 60s and lower 70s along with mostly sunny sky and south winds near 10 to 20 mph.

Gusty winds are likely across central and western OK today with increasing winds in our area by Wednesday as the next storm system approaches our area.

The fire spread rate will increase some today and more so tomorrow across eastern OK ahead of the developing storm system. This means any fires that start would spread rapidly.

Showers and storms will become more likely late Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Another system should near our area this weekend. The model data for the weekend system is highly inconsistent and additional chances are likely to the weekend forecast.

Temperatures for the second half of the week continue to appear mild with morning lows in the 40s and 50s and daytime highs in the upper 60s to lower and mid-70s.

News On 6 Weather In-Depth

The main upper level feature of interest is well off the coastal region of the Pacific northwest this morning and will be moving eastward quickly today and tonight. As this happens, the surface pressures will fall in response to mass evacuation ahead of the feature. This will induce leeside troughing and the typical surface low pressure development across far southeastern Colorado or western Kansas Tuesday night into Wednesday allowing a quick return of gusty south winds today across western OK and tomorrow across the eastern half of the state.

Low level moisture is currently suppressed well south of the metro, all the way to the Gulf coast region. Once the moisture transport begins, a narrow channel of relatively higher dewpoint returns will begin from Texas into the western and central part of the state Wednesday morning through afternoon.

A dry line is expected to form across far western OK Wednesday. This feature separates dry and stable air to the west from moist and unstable air to the east of the feature. As wind speeds aloft from the upper feature approach the dry line, scattered thunderstorms are likely to develop Wednesday afternoon and evening across part of far western OK capable of becoming super cellular storms producing large hail and damaging winds.

The wind profile is marginal for tornadic storms, but a low-end tornado threat will remain across far western OK during this period, yet the lack and depth of low-level moisture will greatly reduce this threat for our neighbors in far western OK.

Get News On 6 Weather Alerts

Late Wednesday night into pre-dawn Thursday, showers and storms will move eastward into eastern and northeastern OK, mostly as elevated thunderstorms. The severe weather parameters will be lower across our immediate area, but storms may still produce some hail and gusty winds.

These elevated storms would be likely to persist through the first part of Thursday morning before a surface front moves across the area with dry air by midday. The clouds will clear by afternoon and evening with pleasant weather through Friday.

The next system is likely to rapidly approach from the west either Saturday or Sunday with additional chances for showers and storms. This system is not modeled consistently in the data, so some changes to timing and locations will be expected before we reach the weekend period.

Yesterday supported low chances Saturday and higher chances Sunday. Today, both the EURO and GFS offer widely different solutions. This could result in scattered shower and storm chances through the entire weekend and possibly into Monday for some locations.

Welcome to spring.

Thanks for reading the Tuesday morning weather discussion and blog.
Alan Crone
KOTV