Warm, Wet & Windy Christmas With Chance Of Thunderstorms

Warm, windy, and potentially stormy: Probably not the first things that come to mind when you think Christmas weather, but that’s how Christmas Day 2016 is shaping up across Green Country!

Temperatures are off to a record warm start for our Christmas Day morning as we continue to surge into the 60s. Areas of off-and-on drizzle and isolated light showers will be possible throughout the morning and early afternoon, with south-southeast winds becoming quite strong as well. Wind gusts over 30 miles per hour look to be common from lunchtime into early afternoon.

Even with primarily cloudy skies, afternoon temperatures look to climb into the low 70s in many locations, which is again near record territory for Christmas Day! A cold front will be approaching by late afternoon, and that front will be the focal point for a potential line of thunderstorms.

A somewhat thin line of storms is expected to develop across central Oklahoma by early afternoon, pushing into eastern Oklahoma starting in the late afternoon hours. This line of storms looks to begin moving into eastern Oklahoma after 3 p.m. - 4 p.m., with storms most likely in Tulsa in a window from roughly 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. this evening.

The overall severe weather risk is low, but we can’t rule out the possibility of a few storms along the line becoming severe with some locally high wind gusts or hail in the late afternoon and evening hours, so be aware! Rainfall amounts look to be heaviest generally east of Tulsa as the line strengthens across our far eastern counties later tonight.

Storms look to be clearing out of eastern Oklahoma after 10 p.m. to midnight tonight, with calmer weather settling in to start the upcoming week. Despite that cold front moving through, temperatures will stay well above normal on Monday with lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s.

Even after a slight cool-down to the 50s expected on Tuesday, another surge of warm air will likely push us back into the 60s again on Wednesday! Highs look to dip back into the 50s by late in the week, closer to normal values for late December but still nowhere near as cold as our Arctic blast before Christmas. There will be more cold air to come this winter, but there isn’t any Arctic air looming for the final week of 2016!