Monday Morning Update

Welcome to winter. I'll skip some of the details this morning, and get to the good stuff!

 A stout cold front swept across the area yesterday and has brought a real deal taste of cold air back to the region.  Temps today will stay in the mid to upper 30s for daytime highs with wind chills this afternoon in the lower 20s.  Temps this morning are in the lower to mid-20s with wind chill values in the teens.  A band of light snow is quickly moving across the southern third of the state with some very minor accumulations on grassy areas.  No disruptive weather is expected but some locations south of I-40 and east of I-35 will experience a fast moving band of snow before the band dissipates during the next hour or two. 

Clouds will stick around for the first part of the early morning hours but will quickly thin from the northwest to southeast allowing for a mostly sunny afternoon.  Temperatures this afternoon may stay around 35 to 37 for the high, but I'll stick with our current number of 39 from previous forecast cycles.  Regardless of the actual temperature today, it will feel much colder with wind chill values in the 20s.

The upper air pattern may be conducive for even more cold air intrusions over the next few weeks, but by the middle of this week, we'll see a gradual warming trend with highs Wednesday and Thursday in the mid to upper 50s.  A few locations should hit the lower 60s Friday before the next system arrives by the end of the week.   Before hand, a weak upper level wave may brush Kansas or extreme northern OK Tuesday afternoon and evening with nothing more than a few high clouds.  After this system moves eastward, the relative warm up will kick into gear.

GFS and EURO data differ in the magnitude of the Friday evening system.  The EURO is much stronger and depicts a much higher probability of precipitation and coverage while the GFS brings the system rapidly over the state with only a few showers or storms possible.  Unfortunately our low level moisture will once again be lacking in depth and quality and the experience with the past two months would support keeping the precip chances on the low side.   At this point, I'll only include a slight chance for precipitation during the Friday evening into Saturday morning time period, but we'll continue to monitor incoming observational and model data and make adjustments when necessary.

Yesterdays high was officially 51.  Our normal daily average is 50 for the high and 30 for the low.

Records today include a high of 74 f4rom 1996 and a low of 3 from both 1917 and 1919.

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Have a super great day!

Alan Crone