Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Cold, Windy Saturday; Hard Freeze Sunday

This has been an interesting week across the Sooner state. Severe weather with tornadoes Monday night and Tuesday morning were followed by snow in the Panhandle Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and then an earthquake early this morning in NW OK. Notice the graphics. Now we have the coldest weather so far this season headed our way, which will be pushing across the state Friday night and early Saturday morning.

Before that cold air arrives, though, Friday will start off clear and chilly with morning lows in the 30s, but at least above freezing. That will be followed by increasing southerly winds and increasing cloud cover as the day wears on, which will put a lid on daytime temperatures. We should still make it to near the 60-degree mark for a daytime high, which is pretty close to normal for this time of year.

The cold front will then push across the state that night with a frontal passage in the Tulsa area around the midnight hour, give or take, and will be followed by strong northerly winds and perhaps some light showers. This system looks to be moisture starved but should still wring out at least some brief showers or drizzle overnight before the drier air arrives.

The bigger story will be the N/NW winds of 30 mph or more and temperatures falling into the 30s by Saturday morning. Right now it looks like temperatures will stay above freezing and any light showers should have moved out by Saturday morning.

Our skies will be clearing during the course of the day Saturday and the winds will be subsiding during the afternoon and evening hours. That will set the stage for a clear, cold night and a hard freeze is still anticipated for Sunday morning. This will be the first ‘official’ freeze for Tulsa although, as mentioned yesterday, most of the outlying areas have already had freezing temperatures.

This will also set a record for most number of days between freezing events as our last freeze was all the way back on Mar 6, which tied a record for earliest last freeze of the spring.

After that, as you can see on our forecast page, southerly winds and sunny skies will result in moderating temperatures going into early next week. However, another storm system will be approaching from the west causing the southerly winds to become strong and gusty, bringing in more moisture and clouds and, eventually, a chance of showers by mid-week.

As has been mentioned for several days now, Thanksgiving Day still looks unsettled with a chance of showers and perhaps even some thunder before it is all said and done. Notice the GFS and ECMWF forecasts for noon on Thursday, for example, and both show cloudy skies and showers across much of the state. However, the main system is now projected to move more slowly than was the case a few days ago which will put the best chances of showers/storms into the day Friday the way things stand now.

Another shot of cold air should then arrive sometime on Friday, and that system may have some wintry weather associated with it going into the weekend. Far too early be any more specific than that at this point in time, though.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot