Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Warmer Saturday; Cooler Early Next Week

This was the coldest morning so far this season for Tulsa as we finally dropped below the 24 degree mark and bottomed out at 23 degrees first thing this morning. That was followed by a nice warm-up this afternoon with the abundant sunshine and light winds. However, as you can see on the max/min temperature map across the state, the more western counties did not warm up as much even though they had lots of sunshine as well. The reason is that there is still some snow on the ground for W OK as you can see on the nationwide snow monitor map.

What snow is still left on the ground in the Sooner State after the sunny skies today will be quickly going away over the next few days as temperatures moderate even more along with plenty of sunshine.

Clear skies and light winds tonight will allow temperatures to quickly fall off and low-mid 20s should be the general rule again Saturday morning. Would go even colder, but what little wind we do have will be from a westerly component; and that is a downslope, wind which means it should offset somewhat the night time cooling. A light W to SW wind through the day Saturday together with lots of sunshine should push our daytime highs into the upper 40s and even some low 50s so Saturday is looking very pleasant.

As you can see on our forecast page, Sunday into early next week will experience a bit of a cool-down as high pressure to the north builds back over us and our winds shift back to a N or NE direction. Although these changes will bring cooler conditions back our way, this will not be a major cool-down and it will be a dry system with lots of sunshine into early next week.

As the week wears on, our surface winds will be shifting back to a more southerly direction helping to warm things up somewhat and also bringing limited moisture back our way. At the same time, a series of disturbances aloft will be spreading this way from the Pacific, across the southern Rockies, and eventually across OK. That will result in increasing cloud cover which will limit the daytime warming and also bring a chance of showers.

Could see a few showers developing during the day Wednesday, but right now it appears the better chances will be during the day Thursday. Temperature profiles suggest this will be all liquid. As you can see on the 7-day QPF map, amounts from this activity across the state will be on the light side so it is not expected to aggravate the high water that is still a problem in some locations.

Some lingering light showers into the day Friday and a wind shift to northerly will be followed by a stronger cool-down for that following weekend. Brisk northerly winds will bring much cooler air back over the state and there will also be some lingering cloud cover which could make that weekend more interesting. Currently, the longer range guidance is not showing a lot of run to run nor model to model consistency, so not a lot of confidence regarding the wintry possibilities nor amounts at this time frame; just something to keep a close eye on.

In fact, the 8-14-day outlooks also suggest a more unsettled pattern for that time frame along with cooler than normal temperatures, so trends in the days ahead will be watched closely.

In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates. 

Dick Faurot