Fire Danger Concerns Increase Friday For Most Of Oklahoma

The brisk NW winds of today have brought some very dry air over the state which means temperatures will be quickly falling tonight with the winds settling down and clear skies in place.  Look for morning lows in the mid-upper 20s which is actually pretty close to normal.  However, as soon as the sun comes up, the winds will be on the increase and from a southerly direction.  That will quickly warm us back into the 50s to near 60, but moisture will be slow to return so look for relative humidity levels to drop to near 20 percent or less during the heat of the day.  That combination together with winds gusting to over 30 mph at times has led to fire weather concerns, particularly for the more western counties where the winds will be strongest.  That is not to say that Green Country has nothing to worry about; quite the contrary as the fire danger will also be elevated on our side of the state.

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Low humidity levels, strong winds, warm temperatures, and dormant vegetation all contribute to the fire danger concerns but another factor is the lack of soil moisture.  As you can see, drought continues to rear its ugly head across our state and with limited prospects for moisture anytime soon, we will end the year more than a foot below normal for rainfall.  Not only that, but total rainfall for 2016 will be more than 30” LESS than we received in 2015.  Quite a contrast.

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More cloud cover to start the day Saturday together with the southerly winds will result in a much milder morning with temperatures running in the 40s.  Another frontal boundary will arrive that afternoon shifting our winds back to northerly, but the shower chances are minimal and pretty well confined to the far E/SE counties.  We should still make it well into the 50s before somewhat cooler air settles in by Sunday morning.  Even so, Sunday will be warmer than normal to start the day as well as to end it and there will also be at least a chance for a few showers later in the day Sunday and into the day Monday.

Monday will also be very mild, but that will be followed by a big cool-down as another outbreak of arctic air will be moving in Monday night or Tuesday.  The timing and initial intensity of this cold air remains in question so Tuesday looks to be a transition day which leads to a low confidence temperature forecast.  For now, am showing a real short thermometer and we may well have falling temperatures by afternoon.  At least it looks to be dry as the colder air arrives.

The rest of the week will be downright cold as you can see on our forecast page.  Temperatures will struggle to get above the freezing mark for several days starting on Wednesday through the rest of the week.  However, we will not have the extreme levels of cold that we experienced the week before Christmas, but the cold air will likely hang around longer.  In fact, this pattern will bring much below normal temperatures for a large part of the U.S. as you can see on this map valid for Thursday noon.

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With shallow, very cold air in place, the wind pattern aloft will bring some limited energy over the state which at the very least will provide cloudy to mostly cloudy skies for the latter part of the week.  Right now, the upper level pattern is not showing any signs of amplifying to the extent that a major winter storm would develop.  But, we are seeing enough energy for at least a slight chance of some light wintry precipitation along about the Thu/Fri time frame and that would most likely be in the form of light snow or flurries.

As mentioned, below normal temperatures will likely hang around for awhile as indicated on the 8-14 day outlook.  Still not much in the way of a precipitation signal though.

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Of course, at this time of year, conditions can change rather rapidly so in the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot