Brutal Cold Follows First Snow Of The Season

Our first snow of the winter season is now long gone, but the brutal Arctic cold remains for Sunday. Tulsa set a new record low for this date with a bone-chilling 3 degrees.

The old record was 4 degrees set back in 1964. December 18, 2016, is our coldest December morning since back on December 9, 2005 when it hit 0 degrees.

A continued stiff north breeze will keep our wind chill values dangerously low throughout our Sunday, so make sure to limit any skin exposure to the bitter cold air. Mostly sunny skies return today, but with strong high pressure in place we’ll only be able to muster highs around the 20 degree mark this afternoon.

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Of course when you factor in the wind, those wind chill values will remain extremely low. Wind chill values will continue to hover below zero for much of the morning, and even with sunshine returning our wind chills will still only recover to the single digits for most of the afternoon hours.

Thankfully, winds will get progressively lighter during the day. However, calmer winds will also allow our temperatures to bottom out well into the single digits by early Monday morning, and it’s possible that some lower-lying locations north of Tulsa could see actual low temperatures below zero early Monday!

Our recovery from this blast of bitterly cold Arctic air will begin, at least somewhat, on Monday. Light winds will continue to start the work week, and under a mix of sun and clouds we should recover closer to the 30 degree mark for afternoon highs.

Many of us likely won’t finally get back above freezing until Tuesday, as south winds return and give us a much more noticeable warm-up. By Tuesday afternoon, we should see highs return to the 40s with another mix of sun and clouds.

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The warming trend continues into mid-week, as a surge back to the low 50s will be possible by Wednesday afternoon! Another cold front looks to shift into eastern Oklahoma by late Wednesday, but this front is not nearly as powerful as our previous cold front, and will likely only drop our temperatures back a few degrees toward the 40s by Thursday.

As we head toward the all-important Christmas weekend, the weather pattern remains unsettled. A storm system nearby could bring precipitation chances back on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but that is still very much subject to change as the forecast uncertainty is still very high in that time frame right now. We’ll continue to keep you updated as things become more clear in the next few days!