Alan Crone's Weather Blog: Watching Two Systems

The forecast centers on several items of interest, including a nice warm-up today and Saturday followed by a stout cool down Saturday evening into next week. 

Friday, February 13th 2015, 4:22 am

By: Alan Crone

Alan Crone's Weather Blog: Watching Two Systems

The saga of winter weather forecasting continues.   The forecast centers around several items of interest, including a nice warm-up today and Saturday followed by a stout cool down Saturday evening into next week.   The data continues to suggest two distinct systems ( or waves) will be near the southern plains Sunday night into early next week, but the exact (specific) weather output remains highly suspicious in the model data suggestions.    The models continue to “flip" with specific feature locations with the systems, and therefore the specific possibilities of wintry weather precipitation.   The chances for snow and sleet will remain rather high for the first wave, but the exact amounts and locations are still uncertain, at least for another day.  The higher chance with the first wave will occur across Northeastern Ok and Southeastern Kansas.   The second wave now appears to be taking more of a southern route and may have little impact on the state.   As stated many times in the past, winter weather precipitation forecasts can change dramatically from day to day.   Please check back often as we draw closer to early next week for updated and possibly different forecast information.

The short term forecast looks good.   We're starting this morning with lows in the 20s and 30s. A southwest surface wind is expected to increase speeds around 10 to 15 mph later today.   The air will warm allowing for daytime highs in the upper 50s and lower 60s across eastern OK.   Saturday morning will also begin in the mid to upper 30s and top out in the lower to mid-60s with southwest winds at 10 to 20 mph for most of the day.   A strong cold front is expected to surge southward sometime Saturday afternoon and evening bringing much colder air back to the state.   This means Sunday's temps will start and end in the 30s.

This morning's data suggest mid-level disturbance in the northwest flow that could bring some light sleet and snow showers Sunday afternoon across far northeastern OK.   This is an outlier from previous runs but now has some support in the current runs.   This would require a much higher chance for the Sunday afternoon and evening time periods.   Some minor accumulations would be possible. The outlier model this morning is the EURO.   The last run of the EURO continues to be slower and stronger with the Sunday wave.   This model develops significant snowfall across eastern OK late Sunday night into Monday morning.   We have elected to discount this worst-case scenario at this point.

By Monday night into Tuesday, another wave nears the southern plains with additional precipitation development. But the last few runs drop the next wave southward with the main impacts being focused along the Red River Valley and more so across part of Texas.   This means changes to the Monday and Tuesday pop structure and would feature lower chances, but not zero, for some snowfall.

The models have also trended slightly " upward" regarding the temp forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, but these numbers would still represent very cold conditions for the eastern third of the state.   Morning lows in the teens Wednesday would be followed by highs in the upper 30s and 40s.   Yesterday and the day before, the model runs suggested single digit lows followed by highs in the upper 20s.

Bottom line:   Short term forecast conditions look good with increasing temps into Saturday.   Sunday into early next week remains uncertain regarding the exact specifics but a winter system will be developing and moving over the region.   You should expect the forecast to undergo some changes, some possibly significant changes, for the next day or so.

Thanks for reading the Friday Morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day.

Alan Crone

KOTV