Cool Temps Continue Across Northeast Oklahoma

Our main upper level trough located across the Missouri River Valley to the Midwest will continue to bring unseasonably cooler air to the area today before a pattern change will crank-up the heat and bring the humidity levels back up by the end of the week.   Saturday still appears to offer the best chance of thunderstorm activity across the eastern half of the state before the front clears the area later Saturday evening or early Sunday morning.   At this point, we continue to offer a mostly dry and pleasant Sunday and Monday before the next chance for a few showers or storms arrives Tuesday into the end of next week.

Weather Alerts

The spotty and passing showers cleared the area late last night and the broken cloud deck dissipated around sunset.   The clear sky and relatively dry air has allowed temperatures to drop into the mid and upper 40s this morning across the area along with northwest winds around 10 mph.   The proximity of the upper trough to the east may still be close enough to bring some broken clouds back to the region, mostly along and east of Highway 75 later from mid day to afternoon.   I think any shower activity today should be slightly more eastward, mostly in Arkansas or southwestern Missouri.   I’ll not include any chances for the immediate eastern Oklahoma area today on the big map but will draw a small area along the Oklahoma-Arkansas state line for a spotty shower or two.

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Our next upper level system is taking shape across southern Canada and will drop southeast into the northern high plains by Friday afternoon or evening.   This broad trough will allow a disturbance ( or two) to rotate around the western periphery and across the Rockies into the southern plains soon.   As this occurs, a surface area of low pressure is expected to develop across southeastern Colorado and traverse east to southeast nearing the area Friday morning.   A quasi-stationary-warm front should develop east of the low and span across northern OK or better yet southern Kansas.   The first disturbance will trigger storms across SE Colorado or western Kansas Thursday night and move eastward along the top side of the above-mentioned front.   This complex of storms ( mesoscale convective system) or MCS will skirt our area by Friday morning.   Unless the boundary is located more southward than anticipated, this MCS should remain north of our immediate area.  I’ll need to make some mention between 1 am and 4 am Friday morning for a few storms to skirt far NE Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas.  I’m unsure if I’ll place this low pop on the 7 day or just draw-up a special coverage pop map for the small window of opportunity.   Locations south of the warm front will anticipate warm and muggy conditions at the surface and a temperature inversion just off the deck into the 4 to 5k foot level.   This CAP should suppress thunderstorm activity during the day Friday. 

WARN Interactive Radar

Saturday another disturbance is expected to round the base of the trough and have a better chance of developing storms Saturday afternoon or evening as the surface front begins moving southeast.   Convective potential energy should be high with surface instabilities also increasing.   This means the potential for some severe thunderstorm activity will be increasing during the afternoon into the evening hours but locations south of the boundary may still be dealing with capping issues.   Wind speeds aloft and weak directional shear will probably limit the severe weather potential from what would normally be a rather robust thermal environment for severe weather.  The front will clear the area late Saturday night or Sunday morning taking the storms away from the state and bringing north winds back to the area Sunday along with pleasant conditions into Monday.   Another system may approach the area late Monday night into Tuesday and bring some storm chances back to the state. While the data isn’t overly robust, I’ll probably introduce a low pop for the Tuesday evening period.

Thanks for reading the Wednesday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great Day.

Alan Crone