Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Nice Start To Wet Weekend

Many locations made it to the freezing mark this morning, but we still have not had a widespread freeze and are nearly two weeks late in that regard. As an example, the official low for Tulsa this morning was 33 and the normal first freeze date is Nov 2, so we are still ‘officially’ looking for a first freeze.

As you can see on the max/min temperature map for today, courtesy of the OK Mesonet, lots of other locations made it down to the freezing mark this morning except for Tulsa.

Tonight will not be as cold due to a light southerly breeze, although some patchy frost may occur for the more NE counties in the normally cooler valleys. After that, a brisk south wind during the day Saturday and lots of sunshine for most of the day should bring daytime highs well into the 60s to near 70.

By Sunday morning, overcast skies will be the general rule, so a much milder start with morning lows in the 40s to near 50. But, the clouds and some light rain or drizzle developing will keep daytime temperatures in the 50s to low 60s for Green Country.

Precipitation Sunday should be mostly in the form of drizzle or some light showers, perhaps during the morning hours, and then becoming more widespread Sunday night. Cloudy skies and chances of showers or even some thunder will continue into the day Monday becoming even more likely for the Monday night into the day Tuesday time frame.

That is when the heavier showers/storms may occur and although the axis of heaviest rains remains east of us, much of Green Country still stands to get a good soaking, as you can see on the QPF map. That should be followed by a more stable pattern for the rest of the week and going into that following weekend.

As you can see on our forecast page, we still do not see a widespread freeze for this forecast cycle. Temperatures will be much milder through the early part of next week due to the strong southerly winds and cloud cover. The main storm center aloft that will bring the rains for the early part of the week still has some uncertainty regarding timing as to how quickly it will move out, so have kept a slight chance of some patchy light rain into the Wednesday time frame. That will be followed by cooler conditions for the latter part of the week but still not cold by November standards.

Another re-enforcing shot of cool air looks to arrive for next weekend, but it does not currently look particularly impressive either. However, that is subject to change as the systems we are tracking at those time ranges are basically still out in the Pacific, so lots of room for error in that regard.

Looking further down the road at the days leading up to Thanksgiving and into Thanksgiving Day itself, suggest temperatures will finally be cooler with a trend to below normal temperatures as you can see on the 8-14-day outlooks. The trend also suggests an unsettled pattern for that 7-day period, but that does not necessarily imply that it will be raining on Thanksgiving Day; still too early to be dogmatic about those possibilities.

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

Dick Faurot