Spotty Showers Soon But More Rain Sunday Night

Friday, December 12th 2014, 4:37 am

By: Alan Crone

Spotty Showers Soon But More Rain Sunday Night

Pockets of drizzle or mist will be possible this morning and later today across part of east central OK with a higher chance of spotty showers across southeastern OK and north TX.   Dense fog has formed across western and central OK and may remain through late this morning. Temperatures are expected to remain in the lower to mid-50s again today with cloudy conditions and southeast winds at 10 mph. Rain and thunderstorms will be likely Sunday evening as a strong upper level system moves across the state.   Seasonally cooler air will follow for the remainder of the next week.

Temperatures are in the 40s this morning across northeastern OK with mostly cloudy conditions.    The main upper level flow from the northwest to southeast is now moving eastward as the Northeastern US trough is moving east.   One more small disturbance will move southward today across the Missouri Valley, while our southerly surface flow will bring moisture into the state.   A small mid-level disturbance is noted across part of North and central Texas this morning helping to generate a few areas of showers across southern OK and north TX. We could see a few areas of showers or drizzle across northeastern sections of the state later, and also early Saturday morning.

The Pacific Northwest trough off the west coast is evolving and will eventually move east across the western half of the nation.   At the base of this trough, a closed low will eventually form and move across the southwestern U.S. and over the state Sunday night into Monday morning.   This is the system that will bring rain chances back to the state Sunday into Monday.   The dynamics with this system are very strong, but the surface instabilities and convective potential energy is very low.   This may result in mostly rain with some embedded thunderstorm activity Sunday night late into Monday morning, but I can't totally rule out a few stronger cells capable of producing some strong wind gusts.   The threat should be very low.

As the system ejects away from the state early Monday morning, gusty northwest winds from 20 to 35 mph will be likely for a few hours before the winds drop back into the 15 to 25 mph range.   Temperatures should start Monday morning in the 50s and fall into the mid or upper 40s by later Monday afternoon and evening with partly to mostly cloudy conditions.

The remainder of the week should be dominated by cooler air. Morning lows in the 30s will be followed by highs in the upper 40s to near 50.   Models continue to offer another strong late week system but differ on the exact path of the upper level system.   Both EURO and GFS data would bring some rain into the area Thursday and Friday, but the EURO would also wrap some colder air down the back side of the system Friday evening.   GFS data is more progressive and less cold.   The ensembles are mixed but tend to favor the faster and less cold EURO.   Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading the Friday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone