Sunny & Hot Wednesday Across Oklahoma

We continue to think the overall pattern will bring another reduction in temp and humidity this weekend into early next week with the main mid-level ridge west and the trough east.  Oklahoma will remain in the middle of these two features but mostly impacted by the eastern trough regarding the temps and impacted by the northwest flow regarding the precip chances.  A few showers or storms may arrive Thursday morning but the higher signals remain for Friday morning into the weekend.  The specific timing and probabilities will continue to change with each model run but the support from a pattern recognition approach remains the best approach at this point.  

Interactive Radar

Before this occurs, the temps will respond upward today as southeast winds return by midday to afternoon. Highs should be a few degrees warmer than yesterday with most locations across northeast Oklahoma experiencing the hottest day of the week. (southeastern Oklahoma may experience Thursday as the hottest day of the week).   I’ll keep the metro between 97-98 today with heat index value nearing 100.  Locations outside of the Tulsa county region will see temps in the 93 to 96 range yet heat index values will be higher, in the range of 100 to 104 across southeastern Oklahoma.

Ozone Alert

Later tonight storms are likely to form another complex ( MCS) and move from the front range of the Rockies into part of the central plains.  Additional storms are also likely to develop across the northern plains and eventually move southeast into part of Kansas this afternoon.  One or even two MCSs’ may move southeast and clip part of southern Kansas and possibly even northern Oklahoma before weakening Thursday morning.   The associated clouds may act to keep the Thursday highs down a few degrees and we have fashioned the temp forecast for mostly 90 to 93 for most locations.

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Thursday night into Friday and then into the weekend, the MCS machine will be cranking out additional storm chances for the late night and early morning periods.  We have slightly higher chances for these periods yet the highest chances will remain across northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas this weekend reaching the highest chances Sunday into Monday across the eastern part of Oklahoma.  As stated above, the various model outputs have continued to waffle on the amounts and locations of precip for these periods.  The run to run and model to model consistency is not exactly high.  So my confidence in the exact probabilities we should use for these periods will be low. 

A surface front will approach the area Saturday before stalling and possibly moving northward into Kansas by afternoon.  This front should be a southern push sometime Sunday with additional rain and storm chances Sunday and possibly into Monday.  The pattern will support another cool-down Sunday into early neg week with lows in the 60s and highs in the 80s. 

Thanks for reading the Wednesday morning weather discussion and blog.