Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Cloudy And Cold

Another dreary day today with the cloudy skies keeping a short thermometer despite a rather brisk, but cold SE wind. Notice the max/min temperature map for today, courtesy of the OK Mesonet, and those warmer temperatures over far S Central OK and along the Red River were where there was at least some sunshine during the day.

A system moving through the state tonight is producing some drizzle, and over the more northern and far eastern counties, a light wintry mix of freezing drizzle and/or drizzle with potentially some light snow mixed in. Accumulations will be very light, so no major problems are anticipated, and this system will be moving out very quickly. However, travel advisories are in effect for tonight, as you can see.

That will be followed by a stronger system moving over the state on Thursday, so do not expect to see much, if any, sunshine tomorrow, even though we will be briefly between systems. This will result in another short thermometer with lows in the 20s and highs in the 30s for tomorrow.

At least the winds will be light, with a northerly breeze in the morning becoming SE during the afternoon with wind speeds generally less than 10 mph.

The Thursday system will really get cranked up after it moves on east of our location, but still has the potential to be a trouble maker for us. Temperatures to start the day Thursday should be near to just above freezing, which is when the precipitation will be starting. It should be primarily in the form of light rain or drizzle again, but as the day wears on and our winds shift back to the N, we could see a changeover to snow.

What does fall will be light and this scenario is not likely to result in much in the way of accumulations; but cannot rule out an inch or so on grassy and elevated surfaces by the end of the day. Again, as you can see on our forecast page, we will have another very short thermometer with temperatures holding in the 30s all day.

We should see at least a few breaks in the clouds on Friday with more sunshine returning over the weekend. Along with a return to southerly winds, that will give us a decent weekend for a change, with daytime highs at or above normal for Saturday and Sunday.

Yet another potential trouble maker will then arrive on Monday with a chance of some wintry precipitation. There are still lots of question marks with this one, as the longer range guidance is not particularly consistent, so will go with a low end chance of precipitation at this time with the caveat that it could easily go up and produce some measurable snowfall.

It may be several days and several more model runs before we get a good handle on that system, though, as it is currently well out in the Pacific Ocean.

That will be followed by another rebound as we go into the rest of next week, as you can see on the 8-14-day outlooks.

Notice the absence of any really cold air impacting any of the country, on average, during that time span. But, there will continue to be a series of systems moving out of the Pacific, so an unsettled, wetter than normal pattern is also maintained.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot