Warmer Weekend.

Been on vacation over the last week or so; back in the saddle now and just in time for a beautiful weekend. Notice the map on the right courtesy of the OK Mesonet. The clear skies and light winds overnight resulted in a very cool start to our day and would not be surprised if there was some frost in a few locations.

However, as our day wears on temperatures will be quickly rebounding and should top out around the 80 degree mark. We will also have sunny skies and southerly winds which will become rather gusty this afternoon with wind gusts near 20 mph at times. That will result in an enhanced fire danger for the afternoon hours.

Those gusty southerly winds will be with us through at least the middle of the coming week, but dew point temperatures will also be on the rise resulting in higher humidity levels which will mitigate the fire danger to an extent. Those southerly winds will stay up around 10 mph or so overnight which together with the higher dew points will result in overnight lows which will be much warmer than we were this morning. In fact, we should be generally in the 60s through at least the middle of the week and may be closer to 70 on several mornings.

As the moisture increases, so will the cloud cover which makes the forecast for the daytime temperatures a little tricky. Right now, it looks like we will have a low stratus deck for most, if not all of the day Sunday and quite possibly on Monday. Any sunshine at all will get us well into the 80s, but the cloud deck looks to be persistent enough to keep us near the 80 degree mark for Sunday and Monday.

A weakening disturbance aloft will also be moving overhead Monday and will produce a chance of showers/storms. There could even be a few isolated showers/storms develop by Sunday night in advance of the system, but Monday looks to be the better day and will go with a 40% chance at this time. Some of those storms could turn out to be locally quite intense.

Any lingering showers should have ended by Tuesday morning leaving partly cloudy skies for Tue and Wed along with unseasonably warm temperatures. Beyond that time frame, the longer range guidance is offering very different solutions with the GFS much cooler and wetter and the ECMWF much drier and milder. Given the uncertainty and lack of consistency, will go with the respective ensemble solutions which are more consistent than the operational runs. That would suggest a frontal boundary along the OK/KS state line on Thursday which would then push on through the state Friday morning bringing a chance of showers/storms and cooler conditions for Fri and Sat. Keep in mind, this is a low confidence scenario at present which should be resolved with subsequent model runs.

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

Dick Faurot