Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Cold Tue/Wed Followed By A Warming Trend

Quite a change today as that cold front arrived with its gusty NW winds and the colder temperatures. Notice the 24 hour temperature change map as of earlier in the day, courtesy of the OK Mesonet.

The next graphic shows how temperatures in Tulsa were warmer this morning than the rest of the day due to the passage of that cold front. That means the max/min temperatures for today were actually inverted for many locations as the warmer temperature occurred this morning and the cooler temperatures this afternoon. The exception is the far SE corner of the state where the cooler air did not arrive till later in the day.

At any rate, the max/min temperature map for today is somewhat misleading due to the inverted nature of locations that were behind the cold front for much of the day.

The cloud cover that moved in behind the cold front also contributed to the lack of any warming this afternoon and those clouds will be clearing out tonight. That will leave us with lots of sunshine for the days ahead, but a north wind will still keep us rather chilly for Tuesday with morning lows in the 30s and daytime highs in the 40s.

Wednesday morning will see morning lows in the lower 20s and daytime highs in the upper 40s along with light winds. After that, things really start to warm up with plenty of sunshine and a light westerly wind on Thursday followed by brisk southerly winds for Friday and Saturday, as you can see on our forecast page.

In fact, it will seem downright spring-like with daytime highs expected to reach well into the 60s going through the coming weekend. The longer-range guidance also suggests these balmy conditions will persist into Monday, but will likely be followed by more seasonal conditions after that.

Notice, also, that there is little or no mention of rain through this forecast period with mostly sunny skies as a general rule. We will start seeing more clouds for the latter part of the weekend and early next week, but as you can see on the 7-day QPF map, if anything falls from the sky at all it will be very light across the state.

Looking further down the road, the 8-14-day outlook suggests temperatures will trend closer to normal during that time frame for us, but notice the absence of any really cold air building this way from the north. The below normal temperatures across the Rockies will be largely due to more cloud cover, and, therefore, precipitation for those locations.

Speaking of precipitation, the 8-14-day outlook also suggests wetter than normal conditions to be close by, but not over us, and drier than normal conditions to also be relatively close by; in other words, a relatively stable weather pattern as a general rule going into the month of February.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot