Green Country Faces Strong Winds And Fire Danger Issues

A strong cold front is moving across the area early this morning and will bring gusty northwest winds and dry weather back to the region for the next few days.  After a few spotty showers and pockets of drizzle very early this morning across far eastern OK, clouds will quickly erode with sunny and windy weather remaining for the day.   Down sloping components to the flow will bring the temps back into the 60s later this afternoon.  

Rather uneventful weather will remain for the next several days (outside of the strong winds) before our next system arrives next weekend.

The main upper level low, currently ejecting into the central plains this morning, will translate into the Midwest while merging with another Hudson Bay trough and will bring active weather to the northern high plains today and into the Great Lakes and northeast for the rest of the week.  The pattern across the southern and central plains will be from the northwest to southeast for the next week and should bring another short-wave diving down the inter mountain region Friday into Saturday.  This will create another Colorado surface low Thursday into Friday with returning southeast winds bringing warmer air into the state by the end of the week. 

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This system will eventually eject across Oklahoma sometime this weekend bringing another chance for a few storms to part of the area.   Just like the departing system, the exact quality of low level moisture may be the determining factor in overall storm chances and severe weather risk.  The moisture this past weekend failed to achieve a deepness and quality that would have supported higher chances that were originally in the forecast for this period 5 days out.  This next system currently appears to have a decent chance for storms Saturday across part of the area.

Our main issues for the next 48 hours will focus on strong winds from the northwest and the impact on Fire spread conditions across the state.  Abundant rainfall has occurred across the eastern third of the state during the last part of February which will slightly mitigate the fire danger issues with some vegetation beginning to green, yet most range and forest land remains loaded with primed and dead fuels helping to promote rapid fire spread.  

Portions of northwestern OK have remained void of any meaningful precip for the past 180 days and fire spread conditions both today and tomorrow may be critically high in that portion of the state.   There will be some meteorological differences in the pressure gradients and trajectory of strongest winds today compared with tomorrow.  But I think it’s prudent to remain consistent with the message of windy weather for the entire period, while Tuesday may have the slightly stronger winds for northeastern OK.

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In summary, the front is clearing the area this morning and will bring sunny yet dry and windy weather to the area for the next few days.  Highs today should remain in the lower or even mid-60s for some locations. 

Thanks for reading the Monday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day.

Alan Crone

KOTV