Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Warm And Humid, But Cooler For Weekend

As you can see by the max/min temperature map across the state today, courtesy of the OK Mesonet, this has been more like summer than the middle of September. In addition to the warmth, it has also been very humid with heat index values topping out well into the 90s for most locations, as you can see on the second map.

More of the same is expected again on Thursday and Friday and, if anything, will likely be a few degrees warmer both at night as well as during the day, as you can see on our forecast page.

Gusty southerly winds will keep the warm, humid air over us, which will prevent much cooling at night and also promote warm, humid conditions during the day. Minimum relative humidity levels are expected to only drop into the upper 40% range during the heat of the day both Thursday and Friday. We will also have lots of sunshine with just a few of those fair weather cumulus clouds for Thursday and into the day Friday.

However, by late Friday a cool front will be approaching and will be pushing across the state later that night bringing a chance of showers/storms. The front itself should be arriving well after the midnight hour, but showers and storms ahead of the front could impact the Friday night football games. Most of the rain should have ended or be ending by Saturday morning with some sunshine that afternoon. However, a brisk N to NE wind all day will result in much cooler conditions with highs expected to be in the 70s to low 80s that afternoon.

Some energy aloft will then move across the state on Sunday keeping us cloudy and cool and also bringing another chance of showers or storms. Neither event looks to be much of a severe weather maker, but cannot rule out an isolated storm or two that could produce some small hail and localized damaging winds.

Rainfall totals from the Friday night event and the Sunday showers/storms could add up to an inch or so for some locations, primarily for the more northern counties, as can be seen on the 7-day QPF map. A few showers may linger into the day Monday, but, for the most part, much of next week looks to be dry.

Also, after a cool weekend and a cool start on Monday, temperatures look to be warming back to above normal levels for the rest of the week. Notice the 8-14 day outlooks which suggest warmer, drier than normal conditions likely prevailing over that time frame.

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

Dick Faurot