Tracking A Friday Night-Saturday Morning Front

Wednesday, September 3rd 2014, 4:36 am

By: Alan Crone

Tracking A Friday Night-Saturday Morning Front

The boundary that moved southward across the eastern third of the state yesterday is now lifting rapidly northeast away from the state early this morning. Moisture has quickly returned across central OK into central Kansas this morning and scattered thunderstorms developed overnight as this moisture transport moved northeast. These storms are north of our main areas of interest. I will not carry any probabilities in the forecast today other than to mention a short term pop for the state line region between now and about 7am. Some of the Hi-res data suggest a weak wave will slide across far northwestern OK this morning with a few scattered showers or storms to our west. At this point, we're not going to include any of these additional pops for later in the day.

South winds and low level moisture will bring the humidity and heat back to the northeastern third of the state today with afternoon highs in the lower to mid-90s. After some morning clouds, we're expecting mostly sunny conditions with a few clouds during the afternoon. Temperature Humidity index values may approach 99 today. Thursday will be slightly warmer with southwest surface winds in the 15 to 25 mph range and the heat index value near 100 tomorrow in a few spots. The next system will move near the state Friday bringing more rain chances and cooler air to the state for the weekend.

The model data this morning seems to suggest our forecast remains on track with a late Friday night or early Saturday morning frontal passage. This means most of Friday should remain dry and warm with highs in the lower or even mid-90s. But late Friday night scattered storms will develop along and ahead of the southward moving boundary. At this hour, most of these storms would occur after your local Friday night football games across the eastern third of the state, but locations to the northwest could have a few storms approaching before the games can be completed. But if the front advances faster than anticipated be sure and have plans in place to shelter from thunderstorms.

The boundary would slide into the I-40 corridor region by pre-dawn Saturday accompanied by scattered thunderstorms along and behind the boundary. These storms would remain below severe levels due to the lack of deep layer shear and being post frontal. The NAM run this morning is not quite as bullish on the pops for Saturday morning but we'll keep the chance at 40 to 50% for this cycle.

Northeast winds will keep the highs in the lower to mid-80s Saturday and the mid to upper 80s Sunday. A few scattered showers or storms may also occur near the Red River Valley Sunday but most of these would remain too far south to impact most of our areas. We'll keep a slight mention of storms in the Sunday forecast regardless of the position of the boundary.

The following week may see a slight increase in temps again by the middle of next week before a much stronger looking front nears the state about this time next week.

The official Tulsa high yesterday was 84 recorded at 12:29am yesterday morning. The normal average high is 89 and the low 67. Our daily records for today include a high of 109 from 1939. The daily record low is 47 from 1974.

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Alan Crone