Wednesday Morning Update

We're still looking at an unsettled weather pattern beginning Thursday and continuing through part of the weekend.  Some spring-like thunderstorms will be possible Friday and Saturday.  Some of the storms may be severe. A few isolated storms may develop early Thursday morning across Eastern OK producing some hail.  

The cold front moved across the area late yesterday evening but no precipitation formed due to the lack of significant moisture across the region.  A stratus cloud deck rapidly formed yesterday morning across North Texas and moved northward into Eastern OK by midday.  This trashed my afternoon high temp forecast for most of the region as I expected the clouds to remain just east of the Tulsa metro.  This resulted in highs yesterday only in the upper 60s and lower 70s compared to my forecasted highs of the mid and upper 70s.  Today, unless I blow the clouds again, we should be around 70 for a high temps with a partly sunny sky. Clouds will be common for most of the day across southern OK and we'll expect increasing clouds later this afternoon and evening across the northeastern portion of the state.  Northeast winds will be common in the 10 mph range this afternoon before the shifting to the east-southeast late tonight. 

The boundary will retreat northward as a warm front Thursday morning and low level moisture will surge northward across NE OK-SW MO, and NW Arkansas.  This should result in scattered showers and storms early Thursday morning for some locations.  These are not expected to be widespread but a few isolated storms could become severe with hail the main threat.  

The boundary will reside near the northern part of the state into early Friday morning.  EURO is the most aggressive in dropping the boundary back into the state, while the NAM remains the outlier keeping the front slight north to northwest of our immediate area.   This creates a lack of confidence in the probability for rain and storms, but we continue to keep a decent shot of Friday morning storms in the forecast.  Friday afternoon and evening storms may be severe across Northwestern OK, but the chance for thunderstorms Friday night across NE Ok will remain slim. 

Saturday the powerful upper level system currently west of California will be moving into the central high plains.  A surface area of low pressure will be located across southeastern Nebraska and a trailing dry line or cold front will move west to east across the state during the afternoon and evening hours.  Storms are likely to develop Saturday and some of these may be strong to severe with all modes of severe weather possible.  The position of the main upper level low across the central plains should also result in the most significant threat of tornadoes to be located across portions of Eastern Nebraska, NE Kansas, and points northeast.  I'll remind you that our forecast may still change significantly regarding the Saturday time period.  This major upper level system has more than likely not be modeled correctly due to the position of the system over the Pacific.  As this point, the higher threat for severe weather will be north of our immediate area, but the " pattern" suggests there would be a chance for a few severe storms in our area Saturday afternoon and evening.  

The system will finally attempt to clear the area late Saturday evening or early Sunday, but GFS data continues to support another trough quickly following Monday or Tuesday.  This will create the need for additional storm chances into early next week and we'll keep a slight mention of storms in the Tuesday time period for this forecast cycle. 

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Thanks for reading the morning update.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone

KOTV