Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Much Warmer Wednesday

Although not nearly as strong as yesterday, the winds today were still an issue as you can see on the maximum gust map, courtesy of the OK Mesonet. Those NW winds also kept temperatures below normal this afternoon with afternoon highs generally below the lower 50s, which is normal for our part of the state. Notice, though, the much warmer air over SW OK today - that is significant since we will have a SW wind for Wednesday which will bring that warmer air our way.

But not till after a cold night tonight, as our skies will be clear, the winds will be light and very dry air is in place. Notice the dew point temperature map, for example, which has extremely dry air over our part of the state. Again, the dew point temperature is the temperature of saturation and is often a lower limit for the air temperature since the relative humidity cannot exceed 100%. But, that does not mean we will see overnight lows in the teens tonight, although low-mid 20s are expected.

At any rate, after the sun comes up tomorrow look for a quick rebound with the mostly sunny skies, a SW breeze picking up by afternoon, and dry air. We could see as much as a 40 degree diurnal range as our daytime highs will be well into the 60s.

After that, a weak boundary will push through the state on Thursday, knocking temperatures down somewhat, but still expected to be above normal, as you can see on our forecast page.

Temperatures will recover somewhat on Friday before a stronger cold front arrives that night, followed by a gusty NE wind on Saturday and below normal temperatures. As has been the case for several weeks now, we will only receive a glancing blow of the coldest air from this system as the brunt of it will once again be well east of us.

That will allow for another rebound on Sunday and even warmer conditions going into the early part of next week. Also, a rather weak system aloft will be moving across the state late Sunday into early Monday with at least a chance of showers. Right now, it does not look particularly impressive, and what does fall should be rather light and should be all liquid.

Looking further down the road, there are still no signs of any significantly cold air coming our way. There will be occasional boundaries causing some ups and downs with regard to temperature such as we have recently experienced. But, as you can see on the 8-14-day outlook, temperatures are still expected to average above normal not only for OK but for most of the country.

As far as precipitation goes, there is a weak signal suggesting a better chance of rain over that time frame, but still no major storm systems are anticipated.

So, enjoy this stable pattern over the next week or two as eventually the storm track and the position of the jet stream will bring more active weather our way.  We just do not see that anytime soon.

Dick Faurot