Mike Grogan's Weather Blog: Brief Relief Giving Way to Heat Again

After a week and a half of baking under the intense July sunshine, a cold front finally had enough gumption to slide south and stall across our state again, providing us with a nice break from the heat.  It has already come with impressive rain totals and even some severe weather. Nearly 5” of rain fell from Monday night into Tuesday morning across portions of Creek, Tulsa, Okmulgee and Cherokee counties as seen in my first map.  And (as of Tuesday afternoon) we’re not done yet.

                The stalled out boundary, partially responsible for this rainfall, will begin to lift back northward as a warm front over the next 24 hours.  That, along with some upper-level energy will be enough to generate another round of rain and storms for Green Country starting Tuesday evening and lasting into Wednesday. Another 1”+ of rain may fall with localized flooding possible, given 1” to 2” per hour rainfall rates likely again in this moisture-rich air mass.

                Southeastern Oklahoma has missed the bulk of the rain, but expansion of shower and storm activity into that region is still possible through Wednesday morning.  East-central and northeast Oklahoma will likely see the brunt of the storm activity.  Severe weather can’t be ruled out, but the lack of heating will limit how strong most of the storms can be.

                Speaking of that lack of heating, isn’t this cool-down great?! Be sure to soak it up because after Wednesday, the heat is on again.  Clouds and showers will begin to clear Wednesday afternoon, but temperatures will only hit about 90° in the afternoon. Outside of a limited chance of showers and storms (mainly north of Tulsa) on Thursday morning, the same weather set-up as before resumes.  That weather pattern, represented in the second map for Saturday, shows the active storm track well to our north again.   Highs in the mid to upper 90s will be common from Thursday into early next week as a high pressure ridge shuts the rain off entirely and allows sunshine to make the mercury rise.  Lows won’t drop much below 80° in Tulsa by the weekend thanks to a south breeze and lots of moisture in the air.  High temperatures will be limited by that higher humidity as well, keeping our readings just under the century mark.  So far, Tulsa has yet to hit 100° and we’ll be hard-pressed to reach that mark as long as we have these periodic rain events this summer.

                Enjoy this midsummer cool-down as we still have a long ways to go before the cool-down of autumn arrives. Be sure to follow me on Twitter: @GroganontheGO and like my page on Facebook for the latest rain and heat updates.