December Off to a Record Start.

As you can see from the map on the right, courtesy of the OK Mesonet, our day got off to an extremely warm start. In fact, here in Tulsa we tied a record for the warmest overnight low for this date. By the way, these numbers are warmer than our normal daytime highs for this time of year which tells you something about how the rest of the day will be. As was the case yesterday, the clouds will play a big part in how warm we get this afternoon and again on Sunday and Monday. But, we will also be close to setting records for daytime highs over the next couple of days before a cool front arrives Monday night.

Also, those low level stratus clouds will make it look like rain, but nothing more than an occasional sprinkle is anticipated through Sunday and into the day Monday. We should see a few breaks in the clouds during the late afternoon or evening hours today and again later on Sunday, but don't count on seeing much in the way of sunshine until Tuesday. Strong southerly winds today up to 30 mph or more will settle down tonight and with some breaks in the cloud cover we may not be quite as warm to start the day Sunday. Still, morning lows in the mid 50s is more typical of our daytime highs for early December.

Sunday afternoon will also have gusty southerly winds but it does not appear they will be quite as strong as today with winds of 10-20 mph, mostly cloudy skies, and afternoon highs in the mid 70s. If we see more sunshine than anticipated, we could threaten the high temperature records for Sunday and Monday as well.

Monday will see strong southerly winds of 15-30 mph ahead of the cool front, mostly cloudy skies for much of the day and could be setting records for warm morning lows and warm daytime highs. The cool front is on schedule to arrive after dark with winds shifting to northerly and a 30% chance of showers/storms. Most of the rain will likely be over the more eastern counties, but they need the rain too.

It will be cooler behind this front, but only relative to how warm we are ahead of it. Temperatures will still be running above normal for Tuesday through Thursday. In other words, the month of December is getting off to an extremely warm start which is in keeping with the month of November which averaged much warmer than normal. More about that the next time, but for now we still do not see any really cold air coming this way anytime soon. Another front will be arriving on Friday with a chance of rain and cooling us down to at least seasonal levels going into next weekend.

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

Dick Faurot