Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Another Beautiful Day

Mighty fine day today, as you can see by the max/min temperature map courtesy of the OK Mesonet. After a clear, cool start this morning, temperatures rebounded nicely and we were even a bit above normal for the daytime high.

Look for Thursday to have more of the same with another clear, cool start followed by a nice rebound in temperatures to the above normal category. By the way, the normal diurnal temperature range for Tulsa at this time of year is 75/54 for the max/min respectively. We will also be blessed with a light northerly wind, which, for Oklahoma at this time of year to have light northerly winds two days in a row is somewhat remarkable itself. We should also see more sunshine with fewer of the afternoon clouds than we had today.

Friday will see a return to light southerly winds and then stronger southerly winds will prevail for the weekend and into next week. That will return more moisture so the cloud cover will be on the increase and so will temperatures. But, the pattern aloft will suppress any threat of showers/storms till after the weekend the way things are looking now.

As you can see on our forecast page, we do start ramping up the rain chances as the week progresses and those chances will probably increase further if the current data trends are supported by subsequent data runs.

Of course, given the time of year, that will also imply the possibility of severe storms next week as it looks like much of the week will see a return to a more unsettled pattern. In fact, as you can see on the 8-14 day outlook maps, the following week also looks to be unsettled with an enhanced threat of showers/storms during that period along with the attendant threat of some of those becoming severe.

Looking further down the road, the outlook for the month of May as a whole is showing a slight tendency for below normal temperatures. However, the precipitation outlook is in the dreaded EC category - that means the signal does not lean one way or the other and there are Equal Chances of above normal, below normal, or normal precipitation during that time frame.

I say dreaded only because the signal does not provide enough information to say with any confidence what we may expect over that time period in contrast the wet or dry signal which at least provides some indication of what to expect.

Since May is normally our wettest month of the year anyway, if we can just come close to our normal precipitation, and considering that we are close to normal ending the month of April, we should be in pretty good shape heading into the summer months.

Lots can happen between now and then though, so stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot