Warm Weekend.

Summer continues to hang tough although our nights will be a little closer to normal for this time of year, at least for the next couple of days.  Notice the max/min temperature map for today and once again our daytime highs were more summer-like than early fall.  Fortunately, the low level air is rather dry so that relative humidity levels were on the comfortable side with a minimum value of 36% during the heat of the day.  That should be the case again for Saturday and Sunday afternoons as our dew point temperatures will be holding generally in the 50s at least through the day Saturday and into the day Sunday.  That is at least partially due to a weak NE surface wind, but by early next week the winds will become more E to SE resulting in somewhat higher dew point temperatures.

That will also impact our overnight lows as 50s to near 60 are expected for tonight and again Saturday night.  However, lots of sunshine and the lack of any change in the basic air mass will push those daytime highs back into the mid-upper 80s.  In fact, as you can see on our forecast page, much above normal temperatures will prevail until late next week when we may see a stronger system arrive.  By the way, the normal values for today are 80/58 and those numbers drop to 78/56 by the end of the month.  Obviously, the month of September will be ending on a very warm note and that has been the case pretty much all month long with temperatures averaging more than 3 degrees above normal.

As for any rain chances, those will be minimal at best.  A disturbance aloft will be impacting the more western counties of the state this weekend but any impact for this side of the state will be confined to the I-35 corridor.  Also, another system moving along the northern Gulf of Mexico could push enough moisture into extreme SE OK to produce a few showers by early next week, but that will be minimal at best.

As you can see, the 7 day QPF map has us pretty much high and dry through that forecast cycle.  However, there are some indications of at least a slight chance of showers/storms late next week and into the following weekend as a weak front will try to push into the state along about then.  However, the run to run consistency and the model to model consistency from the longer range products has not been very good, so there remains considerable uncertainty in those prospects.

As you can see on the 8-14 day outlook graphics, an above normal temperature signal remains rather dominant not only for OK but for a large part of the country.  Precipitation chances should be close to normal during that time frame, but that is not likely to help the expanding drought conditions. 

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot