Wednesday Morning Update

After a very cold morning, we will see sunshine and highs in the upper 50s to near 60 with light northwest winds.   The next system arrives Friday with a chance of showers and storms.  Warmer air will arrive this weekend.  

Wow!  How about this cold air mass across the region?  Record cold temps are underway across a large portion of the central plains, including most of northern OK.  High temperatures yesterday were reached during the early morning hours before the arctic front surged southward across the state.  The only area that did not see a massive temperature change was extreme southeastern OK and northeast TX.  Almost the entire state dropped into the upper 30s and lower 40s.  Very unusual for Mid-to late April.   

Overnight a small area of snow flurries or drizzle made an appearance across extreme northern OK and southeastern Kansas, but the main issue is clearing sky and decreasing wind.  Consequently, our friends from the NWS in Tulsa (and other offices) have issued a frost advisory and a freeze warning for a large chunk of our area through the early morning hours.  

After the morning hours, we'll see a surface ridge of high pressure begin to build across NE OK allowing for northwest surface winds around 5 to 7 mph and temperatures moving into the upper 50s or lower 60s.  While these readings will continue to be below the normal high for Mid-April, this will signal the demise of the shallow Arctic air mass.  The colder air will slide east while south winds return Thursday.  Thursday afternoon highs are expected to move into the upper 60s or lower 70s with mostly sunny conditions.  Another fast moving upper level system will arrive Friday with another chance of showers or storms.   

The low level moisture return is expected to be poor for the Friday system, and despite the pattern, our chances for severe weather will remain very low.  A few storms could produce some small hail Friday, but we don't expect too much with the system.  The timing of this system will be tricky, but at this point, it appears the higher chances may be early Friday morning across the Tulsa metro with increasing pops Friday afternoon across far eastern OK.  We have kept a slight "mention" for showers or storms Saturday morning, but this is mainly for the " left overs" located across the far eastern portions of the state. I will not include this slight chance for the Saturday morning period on the 7 day planner.

Sunday into early next week features some controversy.  The EURO and GFS do exhibit some differences, but seem to converging on a short term solution for Monday and Tuesday.  At this point, the prudent call is to introduce a slight probability for Tuesday and highlight the uncertainty in the forecast for the early portion of next week.  Another surface boundary may eventually move across the state by the middle of next week, but the air mass should be of pacific origin and not another arctic air mass. 

The official high in Tulsa yesterday was 63  recorded at  2:03AM but the temps for the majority of the day were around 40.

The normal high is 74 and the low is 52.

The daily records for today include a high of 91 from 1975 and a low of 37 from 2005 and 1909.

You'll find me on Facebook and Twitter.  https://www.facebook.com/AlanCroneNewsOn6

Twitter  @alancrone

I'll be discussing the weather this morning with Dan Potter and the KRMG Morning News.

You'll hear my statewide forecast and regional weather summary on numerous Radio Oklahoma News Network affiliates across the state through midday. 

Thanks again for reading the Wednesday Morning Weather Discussion and Blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone
KOTV