Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Warmer, Then Brief Cool-Down, Then Warmer Again

Tulsa topped out at 81 today, as compared to a normal high temperature for this date of 76. As you can see on the max/min temperature map for today, courtesy of the OK Mesonet, there were a number of locations here in NE OK that made it up around the 80 degree mark; and the next couple of days will be even warmer yet, with daytime highs, generally of 80 or more, common across the state.

That will be followed by a weak cool front arriving during the Friday morning time frame which will shift our winds back to northerly, resulting in a brief cool-down for the Fri/Sat time frame. Even so, that will just bring temperatures back to near normal levels and even warmer conditions look to be in store for us as we head into early next week. Notice our forecast page is suggesting daytime highs could be around the 90 degree mark and may even threaten some records by then.

The above normal temperatures for Wednesday will be in spite of a light NE breeze, generally less than 10 mph. The only real issue for Wednesday is the possibility for some patchy fog during the early morning hours, particularly in the valleys. Lots of sunshine is expected for the rest of the day along with the warm afternoon temperatures. Thursday will see a light S to SW surface wind which should offset a little more cloud cover so that afternoon temperatures will be in the 80s again.

The timing of this next cool front has been delayed somewhat and now appears to be taking place around sunrise or shortly thereafter on Friday. The northerly winds behind the boundary will cool us off to near normal that afternoon, and much the same is anticipated for Saturday. The front itself may set off a few showers, or possibly even some thunder, but this still does not look to be a big rainmaker for us. Notice the 7-day QPF map, which is not very optimistic regarding rainfall amounts for E OK. Also, areal coverage will likely be no more than 30% the way things are looking right now.

After that, our rain chances look to be pretty much non-existent going into next week, along with the much warmer temperatures for the first part of the week. Not only that, but warmer than normal and drier than normal conditions still look to be the general rule going into the following week, as you can see on the 8-14-day outlooks.

In other words, after a very wet spring and early summer, conditions are quickly deteriorating as we have been mostly dry across the state since late July; more about that in Wednesday’s blog.

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

Dick Faurot