Too Warm, Several Records Set Today.

Came up a little short of the record today here in Tulsa as we ‘only’ made 85 for the daytime high.  86 is the record, but both McAlester and Fort Smith did set records for this date.  By the way, our normal max/min values for this date are 69/47 to put things in perspective.  Here are the max/min values across the state as measured by the OK Mesonet this afternoon.  Hard to believe this is the end of October.

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By the way, for Tulsa, we are still on track to finish the month as the 5th warmest October on record as you can see on this chart.

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Not only that, but we are also very dry.  Here is the latest drought monitor which is released each Thursday and drought continues to rear its ugly head across our state.  On an annual basis, Tulsa is now 9.45” below normal in precipitation.

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Not much relief is in sight either even though a weak frontal boundary will be moving into the state on Sunday.  More about that in a moment.  First, for tonight we can expect fair skies but brisk southerly winds through the overnight hours will keep us from cooling much.  Look for overnight lows in the low-mid 60s but at least the winds will eliminate any threat of dense fog.

More high level cloud cover during the day Saturday should keep us well below the record of 90, but low-mid 80s are still expected along with gusty southerly winds pretty much all day long.

The wind shift mentioned above should make it to around the I-44 area during the morning hours of Sunday, where it is expected to stall out, and become diffuse that night.  There are some indications of a low cloud deck behind the boundary and if so, that could result in a rather dramatic temperature range from N-S.  Locations south of the boundary will likely be back in the 80s under mostly sunny skies and a southerly breeze.  Locations north of the boundary will likely be in the lower 70s under mostly cloudy skies and a northerly breeze.  However, this looks to be a dry system with no mention of rain at this time.

For Halloween, the boundary will quickly become diffuse so gusty southerly winds will return area-wide and together with mostly sunny skies should push daytime highs close to record levels as you can see on our forecast page.  The record for Monday is 87 and it will be close.

That will be followed by more extremely warm weather until the middle of the week when a stronger front should arrive bringing temperatures down, but still running above normal for the time of year.  This system does not currently look to be much of a rain maker, although there will be at least a chance of some showers/storms.

After that, there is still no indication of a pattern change so above normal temperatures look to persist into the 8-14 day time period as well.  Notice the 8-14 day outlook continues to have a strong signal for above normal temperatures not just for OK, but across the entire country.  This would suggest daytime highs continuing well into the 70s as our normal highs by then are in the mid 60s.  Our chances of rain during that period are not very optimistic either with below normal chances of precipitation during that period as well.

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So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot