Warm Air Today But Cold Air Soon

Tuesday, February 3rd 2015, 4:12 am

By: Alan Crone

Welcome to the roller coaster ride of weather!   Our daytime highs yesterday remained in the lower to mid-30s with beautiful sunshine.   South winds will develop this morning and increase speeds in the 10 to 20 mph range as a surface ridge of high pressure slides away from the state.   The result, regarding temperatures, will be highs today in the mid or upper 50s with sunshine and a few high clouds.   The upper air pattern quickly brings a disturbance near the state Wednesday afternoon and evening with a low chance of light wintry precip, falling temps, and gusty north winds.   This front represents modified arctic air and will allow the Thursday highs to remain in the 30s.    As the cold air mass modifies Friday, we'll quickly see warmer air moving across the southern plains with Friday afternoon highs in the upper 50s and lower 60s, and Saturday afternoon highs in the mid to upper 60s.   Another fast moving cold front will clear the state Sunday with northwest winds and a minor cool down into the upper 50s or lower 60s, but still above the seasonal average.

The upper air pattern remains split with a southern stream system to our south, and the northwest flow pattern remaining entrenched across the central plains.   This morning a southern stream system ( last week's cut-off low near the Baja) finally ejects across Texas, but the position of this system remains too far south to directly impact Oklahoma.   The northwest flow pattern will bring a stout disturbance out of the inter-mountain west into the state Wednesday night and this will drive a surface boundary into the state sometime early Wednesday afternoon.   Model data has been suggesting some different frontal passage times for this front, but generally speaking, these types of fronts arrive faster and not later compared to some of the model suggestions we've seen during the past few days.   I think this surface front could cross the OK-Kansas state line area late tomorrow morning and approach the Tulsa metro early afternoon with increasing clouds and colder air quickly following late Wednesday afternoon.   This creates a broad range of temps across northern OK compared to the southern third of the region.   Tulsa and locations north could stay in the near 50 for early afternoon highs while locations south of I-40 move into the upper 50s and lower to mid-60s.   Regardless, temperatures will be dropping once the front passes your area.   We'll see the upper 30s between 5pm and 7pm near Tulsa.

Post frontal precipitation is likely with this system but only over a small area.   Snow should develop across part of southeastern or east-central Kansas and move southeast into Missouri and part of Northwestern Arkansas.   There continues to be a chance for some light snow across northeastern OK Wednesday night between 6pm and midnight. Most data suggest the “real deal snow" will remain to the northeast of the metro. The NAM has been a little more robust in the model output for some snowfall, but not by much compared to the others.   The difference would be between no accumulations to about 1 inch north of the metro.     Again, this chance remains very low.   This entire band of snow may end up slightly northeast and totally miss the northeastern portion of the state. Once again, we're right on the edge of this precipitation potential.

Once this fast moving system exits the region pre-dawn Thursday morning, the cold air remains for Thursday afternoon with highs in the 30s.   Friday features the warm-up into the weekend with afternoon highs moving into the 60s or even 70 Saturday.

Thanks for reading the Tuesday Morning weather discussion and blog.

Alan Crone

KOTV