High Fire Danger.

After a cold start, temperatures had a tough time rebounding this afternoon despite lots of sunshine and our winds returning to a more SE direction.  Notice the max/min temperatures across the state and notice in particular how warm it was in the Panhandle where daytime highs made it into the 70s.  I mention that because with a stronger S/SW wind across the state on Friday, much warmer air is not that far away and will be surging back into E OK during the day. 

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In fact, look for temperatures to hold in the 40s or briefly drop into the mid-upper 30s by the midnight hour tonight, but then either hold steady or rise towards morning.  That will be due to southerly winds that will be increasing to 10-20 mph by morning.  Only some occasional high level cirrus clouds are expected for tonight and through the day Friday so we will have lots of sunshine.  Also, those winds will be increasing to 20-30 mph with higher gusts and together with temperatures soaring into the 70s and a minimum relative humidity dropping below 30% during the heat of the day; that is a recipe for dangerous wildfire conditions.  That is why the good folks at the local NWS office have issued a fire weather watch for Friday.  With these kind of conditions, there is no reason to burn anything outdoors as any fire could quickly and easily get out of hand.

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Saturday will be even warmer and in fact it still looks like record breaking temperatures are a good bet for the afternoon hours.  The southerly winds together with increasing low level moisture will likely give us a low cloud deck for the Friday night into the Saturday morning time frame.  That combination will keep us from cooling much and we expect to start the day in the 50s to perhaps even near the 60 degree mark.  As the day wears on, look for the stratus clouds to be clearing from W-E so lots of afternoon sunshine and given the very mild start we should make it into the upper 70s to lower 80s that afternoon.  The existing record for Saturday here in Tulsa is 77 so we should easily shatter that record.  At least the southerly winds are not expected to be as strong as will be the case on Friday and humidity levels will be much higher, but there will still be fire danger concerns.

Our next cold front will then arrive that night followed by strong northerly winds for Sunday and much cooler conditions.  However, there is only a slight chance of a few light showers and mainly over the more E or SE counties at that.  Temperatures will be noticeably cooler though with morning lows in the 40s but not warming much due to the gusty northerly winds and mostly cloudy skies throughout the day.  Look for daytime highs to only be around the 50 degree mark. 

The cooler weather will stay with us through the middle of next week as you can see on our forecast page.  Even so, those numbers are still a bit above normal for this time of year.  There will also be a chance for showers but the longer range guidance is not very consistent in the position and movement of a storm system aloft that will bring widespread rains to Texas and at least the southern half of OK.  Since most of us will be on the northern fringe of that system, am reluctant to call for any more than a slight chance of rain.  As you can see on the 7 day QPF, this has the potential to produce some generous rains, but there is also a tight N-S gradient in the rainfall amounts with the heavier rains over southern OK and into TX.

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Notice the position of the system of interest as of this afternoon in the Pacific Ocean. These maps represent the wind pattern at the 500 mb level or about 18,000’ aloft.  The colors represent the strongest winds at that level, i.e. the jet stream.   The location of the system of interest is out in the Pacific which means it has not been sampled by our land based observational network.  On the next map, you can see it is projected to be located near the Big Bend area of Texas by Tuesday evening.  From there it is supposed to weaken and drift on eastward across Texas taking widespread rainfall eastward with it.  However, it would not take much of a northward jog to bring the rains more into Green country and therein lies the uncertainty. It may be another day or two before the system moves into our land based observational network which will then give us a much better idea of just how it will impact our weather.

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At any rate, that system will be followed by a return to southerly winds and another warming trend by late next week going into that weekend.  The 8-14 day guidance continues to have a strong signal for temperatures on average to remain well above normal.  However, the longer range guidance is now suggesting at least some showers for that 8-14 day time frame.  We can sure use the moisture.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot