Alan Crone: Slight Chance For Snow Flurries Across NE Oklahoma

The forecast is centered on a short-term possibility of some wintry precipitation and the mid-term likelihood of a warming trend. 

Wednesday, January 14th 2015, 4:10 am

By: Alan Crone

Alan Crone: Slight Chance For Snow Flurries Across NE Oklahoma

The forecast is centered on a short-term possibility of some wintry precipitation and the mid-term likelihood of a warming trend.

First up: Some light snowfall or wintry precipitation today.

A weak system is near the state this morning and will continue to move across part of the central and southern plains during the short term. The atmosphere remains very dry and the lifting mechanism with the system will eventually become even weaker with time during the day across the southern plains, but some lifting will be possible across northeastern OK later today. Regardless, we will keep a mention of some snow across part of the area today. EURO and NAM data continue to show some small signals of some precipitation occurring, and the GFS has now offered a small area of snow to the northwest of the Tulsa metro later today. Short-term runs of the higher resolution runs ( HRRR) have also indicated a chance for some snow today across part of the region. Even if this occurs, the amounts would be very light. This chance will remain around 20 to 30 percent. Don't be shocked if you experience some snowfall today but most locations south of Tulsa will not experience anything other than clouds and cold air. The better chance (relative) will be near and northwest of the metro. A few of the HRRR runs give us a dusting along and northeast of the I-44 corridor, roughly northwest of OKC to northwest of Tulsa.   Temps this morning will start in the lower 20s and finish in the mid or even upper 30s later today with north winds around 10 mph.   Some of the HRRR runs take us into the lower 40s later today, while some of our in-house model runs stay around 36.

Once the Wednesday system exits the region, the pattern change supports some warmer conditions moving into the southern plains, including Oklahoma. The morning lows Thursday and Friday will remain in the lower 20s, but the daytime highs Thursday should move near 50 and closer to 60 Friday afternoon. Sunshine should be the call for Thursday into Friday. A gusty south wind will develop Thursday late into Friday, so we'll be dealing with some minor wind chill values Friday afternoon. After today, we may have a prolonged period of sunshine into the weekend. A rarity compared to the past 60 days.

The weekend starts with 30s Saturday morning and ends with highs in the upper 50s and lower 60s by afternoon. Most data support a weak front nudging southward late Saturday night into Sunday morning and this may knock the temps down a few degrees Sunday compared to Saturday. Regardless, we think the weekend weather will be somewhat uneventful and basically more of a temperature forecast from Thursday into early next week.

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Alan Crone

KOTV