Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Warmer, Slight Of Chance Rain Coming

Once again, hard to believe this is August. Notice the max/min temperature map across the state, courtesy of the OK Mesonet. Quite a gradient in the early morning lows from NE to SW, with low 50s and even some upper 40s, noted across NE OK which quickly transitioned to 60s to the SW. The reason for that is a rather tight gradient in dew point temperatures as you can see on the second map. The location of the drier air, in general, coincides with the location of the cooler morning temperatures and the higher dew points with the warmer morning temperatures.

All the sunshine today helped warm things quickly, but we were still well below normal in Tulsa with a max/min of 87/56; and yes, that 56 is a new record morning low for this date here in T-town.

By the way, the normal temperature range for this time of year is 92/70.

That moisture gradient mentioned above will also play a big role in temperatures again tonight as the moisture will be gradually on the increase along with light winds. As you can see on our forecast page, we are not expecting temperatures to be nearly as cool tonight, but still well below normal. And for Wednesday, with the warmer start along with lots of sunshine, temperatures will warm quickly during the day to the near 90-degree mark - which is still just a bit below normal.

After that, we are closely watching some energy aloft which will be brushing by the more northern counties and will, at the very least, produce more cloud cover for the Thu/Fri time frame. There will also be a slight chance of a shower or storm with that system, but the better lift is expected to be further north so will keep just a low 20% chance of rain for now.

Thursday night through the day Friday and ending Friday night should be the time frame for any showers that can pop up. The clouds and what showers can develop will also have an impact on temperatures with warmer nights and near normal days.

There is also the possibility of a weak boundary moving into the state on Saturday with a weak wind shift possibly making it this far south. It is not expected to have much of an impact on temperatures, only knocking a few degrees off the morning lows and daytime highs, and also not much of an impact on our rain chances as it looks to be moisture starved.

The winds will quickly return to a southerly direction by Sunday continuing into next week. That should result in near normal conditions with morning lows near 70 and daytime highs in the lower 90s for the most part. There is also little or no mention of rain through that time frame. In fact, as you can see on the 7-day QPF map, our prospects for any rain of consequence are limited at best during that period.

Extending that out into early September also shows little or no mention of rain along with temperatures running above normal. Although this recent cool spell will insure that August 2015 will be below normal with respect to temperatures, we are not through with summer yet as it appears September will get off to a very warm start.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot