Windy And Warmer Today And Saturday

Welcome to spring today. And to almost summer Saturday.   And then it’s back to fall or winter early next week with highs dropping back below the seasonal average.  But we’ll see highs in the mid-70s today along with strong south to southwest winds and plenty of sunshine.   Unfortunately, the fire danger will be extremely high both today and tomorrow.  Refrain from burning now through the weekend.   Several counties have already issued burn bans this week.

Weather Alerts

The shallow modified arctic air mass that was across eastern OK yesterday is now being replaced by a dry continental tropical ( ct) air mass from the desert southwest.   This will bring highs back into the 70s today and 80s Saturday as extremely warm air advects across the southern U.S. along with strong south to southwest winds.  The dry air combined with our dormant and dry vegetation will create an extremely high fire spread today across a large part of Texas, Oklahoma, and the high plains.   Some clouds will be possible later tonight into Saturday morning across southeastern and eastern OK.   I suppose this may hinder the Saturday warm-up a few degrees below the advertised highs but at this point see no reason to lower the temps from previous forecast cycles.

WARN Interactive Radar

By Sunday, most data support another weak front sliding into the state Sunday morning to midday.   This will bring the highs back into the mid to upper 50s Sunday and possibly into the upper 40s near 50 Monday.   This is where the data continue to diverge with different signals regarding the evolution and direction of a strong upper level storm system.  A strong upper level storm system (currently located around the Aleutian Islands) will eventually be moving into the western U.S this weekend and then ejecting across the southern or central plains early next week.   Most data continue to keep the main system to our south, but it will be close enough to bring some rain chances back to southern Ok, and possibly northern Ok early next week.   At this point the higher likelihood will remain across southern Ok where some beneficial rains will be likely Monday into Tuesday.   If this system continues to trend slightly more to the north, our rain chances for the metro will increase Tuesday.   We have brought the pops up a notch for Monday regarding the metro, but will still be rather conservative for today's update. 

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Thanks for reading the Friday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone