Some Decent Rainfall Tonight, Ending Later Tuesday.

Finally, a decent chance of rain and showers over the course of the next 24 hours or so.  As has been mentioned a number of times in the blog leading up to this event, there has been considerable uncertainty regarding the track and intensity of the main storm center aloft.  Those issues have finally been resolved now that it has moved inland and as you can see on the 1 day QPF, it has the potential to produce some locally heavy rainfall.  As we have been saying all along, the heaviest rains will be in TX and that remains the case, but there is still a good shot at some decent rains for much of Green Country.  Notice the strong N-S gradient in the projected rainfall amounts which means it would not take much of a change in the track of the storm center to produce considerable variation in local rainfall amounts.  Keep in mind also that this is an areal average and some locations could receive twice as much as shown while nearby locations receive ½ as much.

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Notice also the lack of moisture on the W Coast over the next 24 hours.  Certainly good news for them in the short term, but as you can see the 7 day QPF paints quite a different picture.  I mention this because the pattern for much of the winter has been for a rather strong Pacific jet to bring lots of moisture to the W Coast but those systems have, for the most part, not been strong enough to do us any good.  Typically, those systems have weakened and dropped most of their moisture out west and have not been able to get their act together again till they were east of us.  At this point, too early to tell if that pattern may be changing but at least the system impacting us tonight and Tuesday was not particularly well anticipated last week; so we will see.

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In the short term, the main issue is the very dry air near the surface here in E OK as you can see on the dew point map as of late this afternoon.  As the rain falls through that drier air, it will moisten and cool the near surface air due to evaporative cooling.  The result will be a cold rain, but temperatures will stay above freezing so it will all be liquid.  Temperatures overnight should quickly drop off into the upper 30s to low 40s tonight as the rain falls and then hold steady through the morning hours.

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By afternoon, the rains will be drifting on to the SE but northerly winds and cloudy skies will hold afternoon highs in the upper 40s to near 50.  Look for our skies to be clearing from W-E Tuesday night and lots of sunshine for the rest of the week as you can see on our forecast page.  With the clearing skies and generally light winds, look for morning lows at or below the freezing mark for Wed/Thu mornings but a nice rebound in time for the weekend as our winds return to a southerly direction.

By the way, those systems impacting the W Coast later in the week may well bring us additional rain chances for the latter part of the weekend and into early that next week.  In fact, the 6-10 day outlook suggests at least the potential for additional showers or even some storms across the state.  Also, the longer range guidance continues to suggest above normal temperatures.

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So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot