Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Colder Wednesday, Warming Into The Weekend

As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, the month of January turned in a very dry performance, particularly in relation to the extremely wet conditions of Nov/Dec. The rains that came through last night were generous for some locations, as you can see on the 24-hour rainfall map as of early this afternoon, courtesy of the OK Mesonet; but, as is often the case, lots of other locations received very little, if any at all. In fact, the official tally for Tulsa only shows 0.11” of rainfall, but that is the most moisture we have received since Jan 9.

The backside of that system has produced strong, gusty winds during the day today which will subside at least somewhat overnight tonight. Since those strong winds were primarily from a SW to W direction for much of the day, the mostly sunny skies allowed temperatures to warm nicely as you can see on the max/min temperature map. But, a gusty NW wind overnight will bring a return to much cooler conditions. Clouds will also move back in for the northern counties for the early morning hours.

Wednesday morning will start off below the freezing mark, but still with enough of a breeze for wind chill values to be in the teens. We also expect abundant sunshine after those morning clouds burn off, but the brisk N wind will keep daytime highs below normal and only reaching the low-mid 40s.

After that, as you can see on our forecast page, temperatures will be gradually rebounding for the rest of the week and right on into the coming weekend. Although some minor systems may affect the clouds or winds on any given day, it appears that the next system of consequence will be arriving on Sunday.

Right now, the timing is still somewhat uncertain, but current indications suggest the cold front will not be arriving until later in the day to be followed by much colder conditions for early that following week. That should result in a relatively pleasant weekend with highs well into the 50s both days. Again, early next week will be much colder but the long range guidance also suggests this will be a dry period.

Notice the 7-day QPF map, for example, and you can see the state is pretty much high and dry through this forecast cycle. This more stable pattern looks to persist for the following week as well, as you can see on the 8-14-day outlooks. Notice that we should remain mostly dry through that period along with temperatures averaging near to perhaps a bit cooler than normal.

In other words, a relatively quiet weather pattern should be the general rule over the course of the next two weeks.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot