Alan Crone's Weather Blog: Cold And Wet Wednesday

Wednesday, December 17th 2014, 4:42 am

By: Alan Crone

Alan Crone's Weather Blog: Cold And Wet Wednesday

The next storm system will be arriving across the area today with an increasing likelihood for light showers across part of the state. Temperatures this morning will begin in the upper 20s and lower 30s with afternoon highs in the upper 30s to lower 40s. Northeast winds around 10 mph will be likely this afternoon. Another system arrives Friday, but may be too far south to impact northern OK. The southern sections of the state will have a higher probability for rainfall.

The upper flow will continue to be active with a split flow regime remaining for a few more days. This means a few more waves will eject out of the West Coast and move eastward. The first wave arrives this morning out of the desert southwest and the second will quickly follow Friday. Our medium and longer range data also continue to support the northern stream diving southeast by the middle of next week which will bring colder air back to the northern and eastern third of the nation. We do anticipate the leading edge of this colder air mass to infiltrate part of the southern plains around Christmas. The various models will continue to flip around with precipitation chances from Tuesday through the end of next week and this will happen with little run to run consistency in the data. Our forecast will be based on observational data and pattern recognition along with a heavy weighting to the ensemble data approach. The EURO, for example, brings some precipitation back into the state Sunday night into Monday morning, and also Tuesday across eastern OK, while the GFS remains dry. The GFS brings a big system near the area directly after Christmas, while the EURO is dry. We'll avoid the early runs but keep the trend of turning colder around the end of next week.

Our short term focus begins with the rain-shower activity moving in our direction today. A few sprinkles could be possible this morning, but the dry air at the surface will eliminate most returns from reaching the ground for a few hours. By midday to afternoon the rain will be moving into the eastern third of the state. Temps will top out in the lower 40s for highs, but may drop a few degrees later this afternoon into the upper 30s. This may support a few sleet pellets across extreme northern OK. Locations across southeastern Kansas could see some light and non-accumulating snow overnight as the system lifts northeast away from the state. We'll be in between systems Thursday with mostly dry conditions and highs in the mid to upper 40s. The Friday system may be too far south to give the Tulsa metro a good chance of rain, but locations southeast of the metro will have a much higher chance for showers or rainfall Friday afternoon.

The weekend appears dry and cool with morning lows in the lower 30s and daytime highs Saturday in the upper 40s and Sunday into the lower 50s.

Thanks for reading the Wednesday Morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone

KOTV