Freeze Again Tonight.

The mega storm that will be hammering the E Coast states over the next several days will also be having an impact on our weather. As you can see from the updated QPF map on the right, there remains a huge bulls-eye basically centered around the Washington DC area and another bulls-eye in the Pacific NW. That leaves us high and dry as the weather pattern is pretty well blocked due to the massive storm along the east coast preventing anything from coming our way. A strong onshore flow will be responsible for the Pac NW precipitation, but nothing of any consequence will be able to penetrate across the Rockies for the coming week. About the only hint of moisture we will see will be some high level cirrus clouds from time to time until late this week when the pattern begins to break down.

So, we have basically a temperature forecast for the coming week and the mega storm on the east coast is also having an impact on that. By blocking the normal west to east movement of surface features, we remain under the influence of a cool, dry high pressure ridge. That will keep temperatures below normal until later in the week when the blocking pattern breaks down allowing the surface ridge to move on eastward and our winds to return to a southerly direction.

The second map on the right shows the low temperatures so far this morning, courtesy of the OK Mesonet, and this was obviously the coldest morning of the fall season. Look for temperatures tonight to be very similar to what we had this morning so freeze warnings will be in effect once again.

Sunny skies and light northerly winds will result in daytime highs in the 50s this afternoon as compared to the 70 that is normal for today. Keep in mind that earlier this week our overnight lows were setting records with morning temperatures running near the 70 degree mark so this has been quite a change.

Sunday will start off with another freeze followed by daytime highs in the 50s to near 60 under sunny skies and with light and variable winds. Monday will be a little milder with morning lows near freezing and daytime highs which should make it into the 60s. Our winds will be light and southerly on Monday but a weak surface ridge may give a brief return to northerly winds on Tuesday. That will be due to the circulation around the mega storm along the east coast pushing a re-enforcing ridge our way, but the only impact will be to keep us a little cooler than normal with highs still in the 60s for Tue and Wed.

After that, the flow aloft becomes more zonal allowing for a return to southerly winds at the surface and warming temperatures. We should be in the lower 70s by Thursday and the low-mid 70s for Friday and Saturday. Eventually, this pattern will also bring some energy aloft our way producing a chance of showers and storms. Right now, that looks to be during the Sat/Sun time frame of the coming weekend which will be our next chance for any rain.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot