Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Hang Onto Your Hat

Hang on to your hat next couple of days as the sunny skies and light winds of recent days will give way to much stronger winds for Tuesday and howling winds on Wednesday as a dynamic storm system approaches and moves through the state.

Southerly winds near 10 mph and an increase in cloud cover should keep the overnight lows tonight much milder with most locations leveling off in the mid-upper 40s early and holding there through the early morning hours.

Tuesday will see partly cloudy to, at times, mostly cloudy skies and southerly winds becoming quite gusty by the noon hour with winds in excess of 20 mph expected throughout the afternoon. That should push afternoon temperatures into the low 70s and strong southerly winds along with overcast skies will persist through that night so that Wednesday morning will start off in the 60s.

Quite a change from the frosty conditions experienced this weekend; notice the days below freezing and the hours below freezing so far this cool season, courtesy of the OK Mesonet. Some locations did make it below the freezing mark over the weekend, but, officially, the coolest so far has been 36 degrees Sunday morning here in Tulsa, so we have yet to officially reach the freezing mark this autumn.

Back now to Wednesday, which promises to be a very windy day even by OK standards. A very strong storm system will be developing and moving just N of the state and the rapid pressure changes and the tight pressure gradient will produce southerly winds of 20-30 or more for the morning hours, shifting to a more SW direction at 20-40 mph by the noon hour, and then more from the SW to W through the afternoon when gusts may reach 45 mph or so.

Much drier air brought in by those winds that afternoon together with the vegetation becoming more dormant will also result in a very high fire danger situation.

Early morning clouds will give way to sunny skies to end the day followed by mostly sunny skies and much lighter winds for Thu/Fri. However, before the skies clear there will be a chance of showers and perhaps some storms for the Wednesday morning time frame and some of them may be severe given the very strong wind fields at the surface and aloft.

Any showers will be ending from W-E from late morning into the early afternoon and the activity should be well east of us by evening. The timing is not favorable for much in the way of instability for any storms to work with, but, as mentioned, the dynamics will be howling, so there will be some wind damage potential. With the best chances of showers and any storms from the early morning to around the noon hour, that may also interfere with any Veteran’s Day parades on Wednesday.

As you can see on the 2-day QPF map, rainfall totals are expected to be light as the morning showers will be quickly moving on eastward and likely becoming better organized well east of the state where the severe threat will be greater.

After that, as you can see on our forecast page, we will be in a rather stable pattern for the latter part of the week going into the coming weekend. Another system may bring some additional shower chances later Sunday or Monday of next week.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot