Pleasant Valentine's Day.

The first image on the right is a visible satellite photo of OK taken around mid-day. The snow cover across the western counties and into the Panhandles of OK and TX are quite obvious. Total accumulations were up to around 5" in some of those areas, but as was the case in many other places, much more than that actually fell. It was just that ground and air temperatures were such that much of the snow melted as it reached the ground. That was particularly true on this side of the state where the snow had difficulty actually reaching the ground and when it did it quickly melted.

The second map on the right shows the liquid total of the precipitation over the last day or two. Keep in mind, the totals out west may be impacted by the fact that temperatures are still near freezing out there. At any rate, it put a little dent in the ongoing drought situation.

Sunny skies for the rest of the day today and fair skies for the overnight hours will be replaced by increasing cloud cover again during the day Thursday. Valentine's Day is still looking pretty nice though as temperatures will start off near the freezing mark but should make it well into the 50s before colder air starts filtering in that night. A NW wind for much of the day Thursday and a stronger northerly wind for Thursday night and Friday will bring some colder air back into the state.

Daytime highs for Friday and Saturday will be back into the 40s and there may even be some brief snow flurries Friday or Friday night. By the end of the day Saturday our winds will be shifting back to a more southerly direction followed by gusty southerly winds for Sunday and part of Monday. That means much warmer weather and the possibility of some showers/storms late Monday when our next cold front arrives shifting the winds back to the north and cooling us off again for Tuesday.

I know there is a lot of additional interest for the rest of next week and the weekend due to the presence of the Bassmaster Classic. The longer range guidance is in general agreement on a more unsettled period along about the Wed/Thu time period immediately preceding the start of the tournament. There is much less agreement for that weekend though due to very little consistency in the guidance for that time period. Hopefully, conditions will stabilize between now and then.

In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot