Freezing Rain Threat Continues Across Northeast Oklahoma

Ice storm warnings remain for portions of northern OK and southern Kansas this morning with freezing rain advisories near the metro.   Many other counties across the state remain in ice storm warnings, but our discussion will be focused mostly on the northeastern and eastern Ok regions of the state.

WARN Interactive Radar

The freezing zone shifted south and east late yesterday evening with temps dropping a degree or two in most of the Tulsa county area after the 6pm hour.   This has placed the 32-isotherm line from places near Jay to Porter to Holdenville to south of the OKC area to near Sulphur.   Locations along and north of this zone are at 32 or lower, including Tulsa County, with upper 20s entrenched across the rest of north central OK from OKC to Stillwater to Pawhuska to Bartlesville and into southern Kansas.   This area, to the northwest of the I-44 corridor, continues to be in the most favorable zone for additional significant icing this morning and then again later tonight through per-dawn Sunday morning.   The Tulsa metro will have at least another 6 to 8 hours of sub-freezing temps with rain near the area that may freeze on contact with elevated surfaces.  Bridges and overpasses will be slick.  Ice has been accumulating on exposed surfaces overnight and any additional precipitation this morning will be freezing on contact through the early part of the day.

Weather Alerts

Locations to the north-northwest, basically in the main ice storm warning zone, will continue to have the highest travel issues this morning through midday, especially along the OK-Kansas state line region into southern Kansas.   Accumulating ice on power lines and tree limbs will continue to aggregate this morning and should eventually lead to more reports of sporadic power outages across the northwestern sections of the ice storm warning area.   Wind speeds are forecast to remain relatively light this morning.  Our forecast remains with north winds near 10 mph today.   Any speeds over 15 to 20 mph would be problematic for those same areas located to the northwest in the Ice storm warning zone.

The forecast remains unchanged from previous updates:   The temps will slowly climb to near 34 after the noon hour in the metro and possibly near 35 by afternoon.   Locations along and northwest of the metro will more than likely remain near or even below freezing for most of the day.   Locations across southeastern and far east-central OK will not experience any freezing threats this morning and will climb into the upper 30s and lower 40s this afternoon.   Far southeastern OK, across part of southern Pushmataha and McCurtain counties will experience temps in the 50s near Antlers and near 60 in Broken Bow. 

NewsOn6.com Weather Apps

After this morning’s precipitation moves northeast, we’ll see one more round of some freezing rain later tonight into pre-dawn Sunday to the northwest of the metro.   Temps will rapidly warm Sunday afternoon into the 40s and 50s along with increasing winds from the southeast by afternoon and evening.   A strong storm system (surface low) will eject into western OK Sunday evening and into central Kansas by Monday.   This system will rapidly draw warm and moist air into the state Sunday with storms likely by late evening into Monday morning.   A few of the storms will be strong to severe along the Red River Valley along with pockets of moderate to heavy rainfall possible across eastern OK Monday morning.   Temps will be in the 60s Monday and the 50s for highs Tuesday.   The rest of the week appears rather uneventful with temps warming into the upper 60s and lower 70s by the end of the week.  

Thanks for reading the Saturday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a safe day.

Alan Crone