Lower Temperatures And Lower Humidity

Tuesday, August 12th 2014, 4:30 am

By: Alan Crone

The drier air continues to move southward this morning across the Missouri Valley. This has allowed our temperatures to drop into the lower 60s and a few upper 50s during the past few hours across northeastern Ok southeastern Kansas. We anticipate a very mild start today with afternoon highs into the mid or upper 80s. North winds will remain across the area in the 10 to 15 mph range. Our forecast will be rather uneventful for the next few days before the pattern allows a storm chance to move back near the state this weekend.

The surface boundary that crossed the area Sunday is located across the Lone Star State this morning. Our upper level pattern across the country reveals a long wave trough to the east and a mid-level ridge of high pressure to our southwest. This creates a northwest flow aloft near the state for the next few days, but a surface ridge near the Missouri Valley will keep any pops away from our area until later this week.

The EURO and GFS data both suggest a return of southerly surface wind Wednesday into Thursday with a small surface area of low pressure developing across far NW OK and SW Kansas. A trough to the west by the end of the week will eject a small disturbance Thursday into Friday that will near the southern plains Friday into the weekend. The EURO and GFS differ on the positioning of this wave but the pattern will support us keeping a slight chance for some showers and storms in the forecast. The higher probability will more than likely occur during the late night and early morning periods, but we’ll keep the pops centered up until we see gain a higher confidence in the data. Again, these pops will be no higher than 20% for any period this weekend, and could increase slightly for Monday nad Tuesday across the northern third of the state.

Temperatures will remain mild and below the seasonal average for the next 48 to 60 hours. This morning we’ll see some upper 50s in the valleys with lower 60s in the metro. The afternoon highs will reach the 85 to 87 range with north winds and lower humidity compared to the previous week. This means our temperature heat index values will remain a non-player for the middle of the week.

The official Tulsa high yesterday was 91 recorded at 3:01pm. The normal average high is 94 and the low 72. Our daily records for today include a high of 113 from 1936 and a low of 52 from 1967.

Thanks for reading the Tuesday Morning Weather discussion and blog.

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Have a super great day!

Alan Crone

KOTV