Enjoy Today! Much Colder Sunday.

Yesterday's balmy weather will continue through the day today, but don't get used to it. Another strong cold front will be arriving during the overnight hours bringing a return to much colder conditions for Sunday and Monday.

First things first though, and that is today. Brisk southerly winds will help to warm things up nicely this afternoon and despite some cloud cover we will have enough sunshine for daytime highs to reach the upper 50s and possibly even 60. Temperatures will be slowly falling this evening until the cold front arrives during the late night hours. For the Tulsa metro area, it looks like the winds should be shifting to the N around the 4AM time frame followed by falling temperatures.

By sunrise Sunday morning, temperatures should be near the freezing mark and that is the warmest we will be all day. Temperatures will continue falling through the morning hours and at best holding steady during the afternoon in the mid-upper 20s. In addition, northerly winds of 20 mph and quite gusty will bring those wind chill values into the teens and possibly even some single digits by Sunday night.

So far, all indications show this system to be moisture starved with little or no measurable precipitation. Some drizzle or a few brief flurries may occur, but that is expected to be the extent of it.

Monday will see more sunshine but still very cold with morning lows in the teens and daytime highs struggling to get above freezing. Southerly winds will return for New Year's Eve helping to bring daytime temperatures back into the 40s to near 50. Another cold front will arrive that night so New Year's Day will be colder again with daytime highs near 40 and northerly winds. There may be a few showers over the more eastern counties with this system as well, but for the most part this looks to be a mostly dry system as well. Below normal temperatures will continue through Friday followed by another brief warm-up going into that following weekend.

In spite of these periodic intrusions of cold air, this is mostly a dry forecast. Notice the 7 day QPF map on the right which has a minimal signal over E OK.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot