Scattered Showers/Storms in the Days Ahead.

After 3 straight days of triple digit temperatures here in Tulsa, the clouds and some scattered showers provided at least some relief this afternoon.  Notice the number of days with triple digits through the day Sunday for OK, as recorded at the 100+ Mesonet sites across the state.  For E OK, many locations have not yet made it to triple digits while our more western neighbors have obviously had quite a few.  The official data for Tulsa as recorded at the airport shows 101/100/101 over the last three days so the urban heat island has certainly had an impact locally

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As mentioned, we have had at least some relief today and in fact the only statewide triple digit was recorded in far SW OK.  In particular, notice how much cooler the more NE counties were for their daytime highs with mid 80s recorded at many locations. For Tulsa, the official numbers today are 92/83.

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That was due to the impact of showers and a weak frontal boundary that has moved through much of the state.  The clouds were more persistent there along with the rain cooled air making for a more pleasant day compared to recent days.  As you can see though, the showers/storms were rather widely scattered and most of us missed out on this round.

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But, the weak frontal boundary I mentioned will be meandering around the state over the course of the next day or two and gradually becoming diffuse.  Together with a wind pattern aloft that will be supportive of occasional weak disturbances moving overhead, we will have a decent chance of showers and storms for much of this week as you can see on our forecast page.  That combination is also supportive of showers/storms forming at most any time of the day or night.  Not only that, but this pattern will also maintain mostly cloudy skies for the next couple of days which together with those scattered, cooling showers will help keep temperatures in check.  However, any brief breaks in the clouds will still bring our daytime highs into the lower 90s and the humidity will only drop to near the 50% level during the heat of the day.  That means the heat index will still be near triple digits and with very light winds, there will not be much ventilation.  In other words, it will still be rather stuffy out.

With the abundant moisture that is available, there will be the possibility for a few showers/storms to be locally quite strong with some locally heavy rains possible.  As you can see on the 7 day QPF map, some decent rainfall will be possible over the next week but that does not necessarily mean we will all get that much rain.  As I have stated before, that represents an areal average and some locations could receive a good bit more while others receive little or none.

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By the time the coming weekend rolls around, the pattern aloft looks to be transitioning to a more dominant ridge with some embedded weaknesses.  That will translate into the heat building back over us and the rain chances dropping off once again.  Hopefully, not to the extent we experienced last week but we will be entering the early part of August, so cannot rule out another period of very hot, humid weather along with little or no rain.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot