More Rain On The Way, Possible Thunder Also

Yet another wet day today with cloudy skies, periods of rain and drizzle, and a very short thermometer.  The rains continue to add up as you can see on the 4 day rainfall map, courtesy of the OK Mesonet as of late this afternoon.  Of course, more rain is falling as I write so those numbers will continue to climb.

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In fact, we will have another good chance of rain with some embedded thunder possible through the night tonight and that activity should be exiting the eastern counties by early Wednesday morning.  That will leave us with a low overcast and some lingering drizzle or sprinkles for the first hours of the morning but mostly dry conditions for the balance of the day.  The cloudy skies for the morning should give way to at least some afternoon sunshine which together with a light NW to W breeze should make for a rather pleasant afternoon.  That will be followed by another round of showers and possible thunder Wednesday night into the morning hours of Thursday which is expected to be the final weather maker from the storm system that has provided these cloudy, rainy days of late.

Notice the position of the upper level storm system at the 18,000’ or 500 mb level around the noon hour today and its position in NE Colorado.  It has been meandering around that general area for several days now.  That system will finally be weakening and ejecting on eastward in the days ahead but as that process occurs there will be additional energy rotating around the main storm center providing the additional rounds of rain and possible storms tonight and again Wednesday night/Thursday morning. 

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Notice where it will be by Thursday evening and it is evident that the system will have weakened considerably by then and will have moved on east of OK. 

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As that process takes place, this system will not be a severe weather maker for us although some small hail and localized gusty winds cannot be completely ruled out.  The main factor will be the additional rainfall on already saturated soils so some localized flooding issues will be possible although it does not look to be a major flood maker either.  I have included the 2 day QPF map which will take us through Thursday and which suggests another inch or two will be possible.

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After that, the ridging aloft that is noted on the upper level map for Thursday will move overhead providing us with lots of sunshine and a much more stable weather pattern going into the coming weekend.  That also means much warmer daytime temperatures as you can see on our forecast page.

As we get into next week, the longer range guidance suggests another series of systems aloft will be penetrating the W U.S. and heading our direction bringing additional chances of showers/storms.  The pattern by then will likely be more supportive of severe weather as an active weather period looks to persist through the 8-14 day outlook.  Of course, late April into early May is historically an active weather period for the state anyway.

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So, stay tuned and check back for updates. 

Dick Faurot