Freeze Tonight; Cool, Dry Week Ahead.

Now that the rain is pretty much over, the map on the right, courtesy of the OK Mesonet shows the totals around the state as estimated by radar and as measured by actual rain gauges. As mentioned earlier, this is not a drought buster by any stretch, but this will certainly help with the ongoing soil moisture needs; particularly since temperatures will be much cooler this coming week and the corresponding evaporation rates will be much less. By the way, in case you thought your eyes were deceiving you, there have even been a few brief snow flurries reported this afternoon.

Our skies will be clearing rather quickly from W-E by this evening leaving us with clear skies overnight and sunny skies for Monday. Also, the winds will be calming down after sunset this evening which all adds up to a clear, cold start to Monday morning. In fact, this will likely be the coldest morning of the season with most of us in the low-mid 20s and possibly even some upper teens in the colder valley areas.

It is a good thing that most of the Veteran's Day Parades and other activities are on Monday as it will be much more pleasant than today. Certainly on the cool side, but the sunshine and light SW winds should allow afternoon temperatures to reach the lower 50s which is about 10 degrees cooler than normal.

After that, the rest of the coming week will be rather quiet with only some occasional high level cirrus clouds, a return to light southerly winds, and a gradual moderation in temperatures. Tuesday morning will also be cold with lows in the 20s, but that afternoon will be a little milder with highs in the mid-upper 50s. Wed, Thu, and Fri will be progressively milder each day with highs near 60 Wednesday and in the low-mid 60s going into the coming weekend.

Our next chance of rain still does not look very impressive, but there is a weak signal indicated for late Saturday and into the day Sunday. Unless we see some changes with subsequent model runs, that system will not do much, if anything, to alleviate the ongoing drought situation. Quite frankly, the longer range guidance going into that following week does not look very promising with regard to any additional rain makers either. In other words, the rain we received today may have to last us for a good while before we get another good chance of additional moisture..

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot