Warm Weekend, Isolated Showers/Storms

Turns out the record low for Thursday morning of 77 degrees did not make it for the calendar day as the temperature dropped to 73 by midnight.  We bottomed out at 70 this morning but it has been another short thermometer day with a high so far of only 79.  The cloudy skies certainly helped hold temperatures down today here in E OK but more sunshine for the western counties allowed temperatures to soar into the 80s to near 90 as you can see on the max/min temperature map, courtesy of the OK Mesonet.

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That temperature gradient across the state has also been a focus for showers/storms to form late this afternoon which will be moving NE for the early night time hours.  Some of those storms will be locally quite intense and may even be marginally severe, but the trend will be for them to weaken overnight.  By Saturday morning, any lingering showers will be confined to the far east/NE counties and most of the day Saturday should be dry.  There remains a slight chance of a few spotty showers or storms to develop during the afternoon or early evening hours though, so keep a close eye on the sky.  Overcast skies to start the day Saturday should allow a few breaks during the afternoon and our daytime high is expected to reach the mid-upper 80s after starting the day in the upper 60s.  We will maintain a S/SE wind through the weekend as well.

That southerly wind component also means our nights will remain on the warm side with morning lows in the 60s to near 70 for Sunday morning and going into next week.  Partly sunny skies on Sunday will give way to cloudy to mostly cloudy skies for Memorial Day itself and mostly cloudy skies will persist through at least the middle of the coming week.  At the same time, conditions aloft will once again be supportive of showers/storms developing along with the potential for locally heavy rainfall and perhaps a few marginally severe storms.  The rain chances start ramping up again on Memorial Day and we will keep a good chance at least through Wednesday as you can see on our forecast page.

By Thursday, the longer range guidance continues to suggest a frontal boundary should arrive shifting our winds to northerly, cooling things off somewhat for the latter part of the week, but more importantly providing a break in our daily storm chances.  As you can see on the 7 day QPF map, the potential remains for some locally heavy rainfall over the coming week, so hopefully we will get that deserved break in time for the following weekend.

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Looking further down the road, the 6-10 day outlook suggest that this active pattern will return as it continues  to suggest above normal chances of showers/storms into that first week of  June and with the extra cloud cover somewhat cooler than normal temperatures.

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So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot