Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Heavy Precipitation Expected Saturday-Monday

Had to recheck the calendar this morning as it felt more like March or even April, as you can see on the temperature map as of 9 a.m., courtesy of the OK Mesonet.

Those cooler temperatures in the western part of the state have been brought eastward by gusty westerly winds today, but were offset by the abundant afternoon sunshine. Now that the sun has gone down, and the winds have calmed down, we will be much cooler to start the day for Christmas Eve, but still well above normal - morning lows in the upper 30s to low 40s are expected.

Speaking of feeling more like spring, notice the severe weather reports so far today. More than a dozen tornadoes so far and severe weather almost as far north as the Great Lakes; that is just crazy for this time of year.

Back to our weather; these very mild daytime temperatures will continue right on through Christmas Day, with temperatures running 10-15 degrees or so above normal again for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as you can see on our forecast page.

However, the mostly sunny skies for tomorrow will give way to mostly cloudy skies by Friday afternoon, and perhaps some light showers for the more E and SE counties that night. After that is when it gets real interesting as a major storm system is still expected to develop in the extreme southern Rockies or northern Mexico. That system will provide the ingredients for widespread rainfall ahead of it until it finally lifts out to the NE which is not expected until early next week.

Notice the 7-day QPF map and you can see why there is major concern regarding the potential for flooding from our area eastward. Also, there is a rather tight rain gradient with this system, so any shift of the main storm track could have huge implications regarding how much rain falls at a given location and also the type of precipitation.

Strongly recommend keeping a close eye on weather conditions in the days ahead as there may be significant changes as newer data comes in.

Right now, the data is reasonably consistent in showing light rain developing Friday night over the more E and SE counties and becoming widespread and heavy by morning. That will continue pretty much through the day Saturday while, at the same time, a surface boundary sags southward. That will bring cooler air back our way so that Saturday will start off warmer than it will end.

Sunday will be much colder and still very wet, but temperatures are expected to stay above freezing, at least for this side of the state. For the more western counties, temperatures will likely stay below freezing all day and it will still be wet, creating some major travel issues for those headed that way.

Monday is when we may see a wintry mix here in E OK, but the location and amounts are very uncertain at this time. Keep in mind we are still dealing with the forecast position of a system that is currently out in the Pacific Ocean which creates considerable uncertainty regarding its timing/track/intensity. Current indications suggest any wintry weather would be primarily confined to locations NW of the I-44 corridor, but, as mentioned earlier, that is certainly subject to change.

After this system finally clears out, we will finally have weather more consistent with the season with lows in the 20s and highs in the 40s under mostly sunny skies.

By the way, it also appears that our weather will finally be more winter-like going into the first of the year, as the 8-14-day outlooks suggests we will be near or below normal with respect to temperatures and the active weather will be further down into Texas.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot