Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Cold, Windy Friday; Single Digit Wind Chills Expected

As you can see from the max/min temperature map, courtesy of the OK Mesonet, after a brutally cold start we did manage to, at least briefly, thaw out this afternoon. However, those cold morning temperatures along with a brisk southerly breeze produced some extremely cold wind chill values.

The minimum wind chill map, which is the second map, reflects the combination of those early morning temperatures and the increasing southerly winds earlier today.

Another cold front will be arriving overnight tonight followed by gusty northerly winds for much of the day Friday.

At least it will not be as cold to start the day with morning lows generally running in the teens, but northerly winds of 15-20 mph will push the wind chill back down into the single digits.

Brisk northerly winds will continue through the day and will counteract the mostly sunny skies that are expected. As a result, temperatures are expected to stay below freezing all day.

Those winds will quickly settle down Friday evening as high pressure settles over us and, with the clear skies, Saturday morning will be another cold one with single digits to low teens expected.

However, a quick return to a more S/SE wind during the day Saturday, along with lots of sunshine, should, once again, push afternoon temperatures above the freezing mark.

Saturday night into early Sunday morning could get a little interesting, particularly for the more SE counties. Some energy aloft will be moving eastward across Texas but will spread, increasing cloud cover over us.

As the moisture increases both at the surface and aloft, there will be a window of opportunity for some light freezing rain or freezing drizzle to develop. Amounts will be very light, so this does not look to be a major event, but something to be aware of.

As we go through the day Sunday, temperatures will moderate back above the freezing mark, so any lingering drizzle or light rain will be all liquid and no problems are anticipated. Again, this is a low probability event, but something to be aware of.

SE winds and cloudy skies are also expected all day Sunday.

Another cold front will arrive early Monday shifting our winds back to the NE. Once again, there will be a brief window of opportunity for a wintry mix, primarily for the more eastern counties, by early Monday morning.

This is not a particularly cold system, but the NE winds and lack of sunshine will keep a short thermometer with afternoon highs just above freezing.

Northerly winds and cold air in place will continue through Wednesday and yet another, stronger storm system looks to be moving our way late Tuesday into early Wednesday.

The longer range guidance is not totally on board with that system just yet, but the trends support the potential for snowfall during that time frame, possibly even several inches if the Euro model is correct.

Right now this does not appear to be a major snow storm, but subsequent data runs should help fine tune the forecast for that time frame over the next few days; just something to be aware of.

After that, the longer range guidance strongly suggests a more significant moderating trend with temperatures expected to average above normal for that following weekend and into the third week of January.

Notice the last two maps for example, something to look forward to as cold as the month has been so far.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot.