Alan Crone's Weather Blog: Flash Flood Watch For Eastern Oklahoma

Weather Alerts

Storms are stout at this hour (3 am) across southwestern OK.  But instability and convective energy is lower across the eastern sections.   A few strong storms may still be strong to severe across the region this morning due to a convectively induced area of vorticity near OKC this morning.   Pockets of moderate to heavy rainfall will also be possible in some locations. 

WARN Interactive Radar

Our forecast hasn't changed too much in the last 24 hours:   storm chances will remain through part of Saturday before we see a break Sunday into Monday.

Temperatures this morning remain in the mid-60s along with south winds around 10 mph.   Highs this afternoon will move back into the lower 80s.   Short term model data is bullish on bring these early morning storms across eastern OK this morning to midday.   We may see a second round again until later tonight.   Additional storms may also develop to our west overnight and migrate into the area by early Friday morning.   Friday afternoon and evening a surface boundary will begin sliding southward, slowly, and influencing our weather with increasing rain and storm chances into the evening hours.   Pockets of moderate to heavy rainfall will remain in the forecast.   Due to the saturated soils, and the fact that the rivers are either at flood or very high, another flash flood is required for eastern OK and will be in effect until early Sunday morning.

Saturday the surface front will slowly move across northern OK sometime early morning to midday.   But our main upper level trough will still be near the eastern part of the state Saturday afternoon and evening.   This means despite the frontal passage we'll need to keep some rain in the forecast for midday to early Saturday afternoon before the drier and cooler air eventually ends the precip across the northern part of the state.   This mid-level trough is forecast to slowly spin near western Arkansas into Eastern TX Sunday into Monday.   This could bring a few showers to extreme eastern OK Sunday and Monday, but I think the chance is too low to mention in the forecast at this point.   Temperatures this weekend should also cool down.   Morning lows Saturday in the mid-60s will be followed by highs in the lower to mid-70s.  Sunday morning will start in the upper 50s and end in the mid-70s along with partly sunny and mild weather.   Temperatures will quickly rebound next week with lows in the upper 60s and highs in the lower to mid-80s.

The upper air pattern next week resembles late May and early June!   Shock.   A mid-level ridge will attempt to develop to our west with a northwest upper flow grazing part of the central plains into northeastern OK.   This would bring more active weather into the state periodically during the late night and early morning periods.   We'll get a break from the rain for a few days early next week, but the pattern would suggest late night and early morning storm complexes ( MCS) would be possible by later in the week.  

Thanks for reading the Thursday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone