Read Alan Crone's Blog: Tracking Cold Air

Wednesday, November 12th 2014, 4:31 am

By: Alan Crone

Read Alan Crone's Blog: Tracking Cold Air

Temperatures should be even colder today and tomorrow compared to yesterday as a ridge of arctic high pressure builds southward across the northern and central plains states and the strong-deep upper low is supplanted across the Midwest and Great Lakes. This will keep the state in the cold air for the next several days. A storm system in the mid and upper levels of the atmosphere will approach from the west Saturday bringing a chance for some mixed precipitation. A surface cold front will move back across the state Sunday morning keeping the cold air in place Sunday and Monday before the arctic air mass begins to relax its grip on the southern plains. I think this air mass will finally moderate and kick eastward Tuesday into Wednesday of next week.

Temperatures this morning have dropped into the lower 20s with wind chill values projected from 10 to 20 degrees for the next several hours. Afternoon highs will only move into the lower or mid-30s with northeast winds at 10 to 15 mph along with some sunshine. A few clouds may arrive early afternoon. This cold air mass will continue to keep the temps well below the seasonal average for the next few days with morning lows in the 20s and daytime highs in the 30s. We may see temps nearing 40 Friday for the afternoon high but many locations will remain in the mid to upper 30s.

Our big forecasting issue remains this weekend. We've continued to see different solutions regarding the strength of the Saturday wave and the output regarding precipitation types and amounts. I'll spare the details and “cut to the chase" . I think the Saturday system will produce some precip, and more than likely a mixture of light showers and sleet by the afternoon that could change to some light snow showers across far northern OK. Southern Kansas seems to have the better shot at measurable snowfall Saturday with this first wave.

As the surface front moves southward Sunday morning, we're probably going to see some flurries or light snow by midday to afternoon for a few hours, but no significant accumulations would be expected. Because the models continue to leave some doubt for the exact outcome, and the confidence level is relatively low, I will also keep a relatively low precipitation chance in the forecast for this system with the expectation that some increase in the pop may be required for this weekend.

Thanks fore reading the Wednesday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a great day!

Alan Crone