Alan Crone's Weather Blog: A Wet Thanksgiving

Increasing rain chances will be in the forecast for the Thanksgiving Holiday.   Mild temperatures will be expected through Thursday but a strong cold front will roll across the plains bringing much colder air back to Oklahoma Friday and lasting into the weekend.   Precipitation chances will remain this weekend with the cold air in place.   Some locations across northwestern or north-central OK may experience some light freezing rain this weekend. 

Temperatures will rebound today and Tuesday back into the upper 50s and lower 60s across eastern OK after some locations will begin early this morning with sub-freezing temperatures.   A strong upper level trough will develop soon across the Pacific Northwest and drop southward to near the Northern California area before stalling within the flow.   A stout southwest upper air flow will continue to move across the southern plains, including Oklahoma, with a few weak impulses imbedded within this air-flow.  

South winds will return now through Thursday as lower level moisture returns across the area some through Wednesday.

A stronger disturbance will arrive Wednesday night into Thanksgiving morning with a surface area of low pressure developing across the high plains of Texas and a cold front extending across the northern and central plains states.   This front will move southward as the surface low drops south.   Extremely high amounts of moisture relative to late November will be present across the region with increasing chances for moderate to heavy rainfall with some thunderstorm activity Thursday.   Some multi-inch rainfall will be possible in some locations.   The threat of strong to severe thunderstorm activity appears rather low as surface instability and wind shear will remain very low.  

As the cold front passes the area Thursday afternoon and evening much colder air will spill southward into the state for the weekend.   This is the portion of the forecast that will remain in low confidence for the next few days.

The model data (both GFS and EURO) have not had excellent run to run comparisons but the data has been somewhat more consistent in the past 2 to 4 runs.   This would suggest another upper level trough nearing the area this weekend with increasing rain chances Saturday into part of Sunday.   The problem remains at the surface where cold air will be in place across the entire state.   Recent data keeps any freezing or sub-freezing temperatures across far north-central and northwestern OK Saturday and Sunday while locations across most of eastern OK remain in the upper 30s or near 40 Saturday and into the upper 30s and mid-40s Sunday.   This set-up would keep any light freezing rain well northwest or west of eastern OK.    But past systems in this type of pattern have brought sub-freezing temperatures more east and south than modeled.  At this point, the data suggest the light freezing rain will remain west of our immediate eastern OK areas.    We’ll keep watching the data and will update accordingly as the forecast process continue. 

Thanks for reading the Monday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone

KOTV