Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Lighter Winds Tuesday, Still High Fire Danger

Wow, the wind in Oklahoma - someone should write a song - oh wait, someone already has!

Anyway, those winds have been something today with maximum gusts to near 50 mph, as you can see on the wind gust map courtesy of the OK Mesonet. That, in turn, has produced a high fire danger with numerous fires at various times during the day today, as you can see on the newson6 web site.

Fortunately, those winds will settle down tonight, but will not go completely calm, with overnight winds still expected to be on the order of 10-15 mph. Then, shortly after sunrise Tuesday, the winds will be picking up once again from the NW, but not as strong as today, with winds generally on the order of 15-25 mph.

That means another high fire danger for Tuesday as very dry air is also in place. Notice the dew point temperature map as of late this afternoon - and with dew points in the teens to near zero indicates very dry air is entrenched statewide. Despite the strength of those NW winds, temperatures did manage to moderate somewhat this afternoon as you can see on the max/min temperature map. However, it was still one of the few days this month that was cooler than normal as, so far, February is running more than 4 degrees warmer than normal.

Although we were relatively cool today, the real brunt of the cooler air continues to be off to our east and SE, as you can see on the projected temperature map for Wednesday morning. This has been the pattern for some time now as we have just been getting a glancing blow of the coldest air with these fronts that have been moving through for the last few weeks.

Even so, it will be chilly to start the day Tuesday with morning lows in the 20s, and those NW winds may bring wind chill values into the teens for some locations. Only a few high clouds are expected during the day, so lots of sunshine to counter the brisk NW winds should moderate temperatures to near 50.

As you can see on our forecast page, there will be several more fronts pushing across the state through the coming weekend with another weak boundary arriving Thursday and a stronger one on Saturday. That will result in some ups and downs regarding temperatures, but, again, the coldest air looks to be shunted further east.

In fact, the longer range guidance continues to keep us in a persistent signal suggesting temperatures will average above normal. Not only that, but we see little or no mention of rain until perhaps Sunday night or Monday.

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