Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Cooler Through The Weekend

As you can see on the satellite image from late this afternoon, those low-level stratus clouds were hanging tough right over much of NE OK, Tulsa County in particular. Next, notice the impact those clouds had on temperatures late this afternoon, with 60s where the clouds were thickest - i.e. in Tulsa County - and 70s pretty much everywhere else.

At least we finally have a taste of fall weather with the cooler conditions of today, as compared to recent days when we were up to 10 degrees above normal. However, the cooler conditions today did not do much to change the fact that this September will go in the record book with an average temperature around 3.5 degrees warmer than normal, which is enough to put the month in the top 20 warmest Septembers.

It has also been relatively dry, with less than 3” officially recorded at the airport, which is more than an inch below normal. However, that is a far cry from the trace that we had for Sep of 1948.

The cooler air that settled in today will be with us for the rest of the week. In fact, as you can see on our forecast page, temperatures will actually be cooler than normal for a change. Speaking of normal temperatures, the average temperature range goes from 78/56 to 68/46 from the first of October to the end of the month.

The N and NE winds that brought in the cooler air today will also bring drier low-level air into the state over the next few days which will allow for much cooler nights. Also, our skies are trying to clear out as this is written, but there will still be enough moisture aloft for partly cloudy to at times partly sunny skies.

By Saturday, a disturbance aloft, which earlier in the week looked rather impressive, will still be impacting the state, but all indications now suggest its primary effect will be over the more western counties and further north into KS. As a result, little or no rain is now anticipated for E OK which should make for a pleasant fall weekend.

A return to southerly winds early next week will be accompanied by a warming trend, but it still looks to be dry. Our next decent chance for rain now looks to be along about the Wed/Thu time frame of next week, which would be followed by another cool-down. But, the longer range guidance remains rather suspect, with day to day and model to model inconsistencies.

That is particularly significant for those locations along the E coast of the US where hurricane Joaquin may, or may not, be a significant player. Notice the 7-day QPF map which continues to project heavy rains along the E coast, but not much here in E OK. What little rain we may receive over that time frame will most likely be on the light side.

So, current indications suggest some pleasant fall-like weather over most of this forecast cycle along with little or no mention of rain till perhaps the end of the 7-day period.

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

Dick Faurot