Fall-like Today, Summer-like Tomorrow.

Not a bad start for this first full day of the Fall season. The map to the right, courtesy of the OK Mesonet, shows the low temperatures so far this morning and you can clearly see the impact of the cooler air that has settled over about the northern half of the state. Unfortunately, today's relatively mild conditions will not last long as Monday and Tuesday will see a return to strong southerly winds and much warmer temperatures. In fact, much of S and SW OK will be well into the 90s this afternoon and that air will quickly replace the cooler air now in place over NE OK.

There have also been a few showers and even a rumble or two of thunder in some areas this morning and that activity will be quickly moving on to the SE and falling apart as the day wears on. That should leave us with at least some afternoon sunshine but a pretty good temperature gradient across the state. The NE corner will stay in the 70s this afternoon with daytime highs gradually warming into the 80s further S and W. As mentioned above, the more southern and SW counties will be well into the 90s by later this afternoon so more like summer time for them.

Today's SE winds will be more southerly tonight and with partly cloudy skies will hold overnight lows to near 60 so a warmer start to the day on Monday. During the day Monday, a more S to SW wind will be quickly increasing to 15-30 mph with some higher gusts. That will quickly bring the very warm, dry air back over the rest of the state so that afternoon temperatures are expected to be soaring into the upper 80s for extreme NE OK and 90s elsewhere. Couple that with minimum afternoon relative humidity levels dropping to near 20% or so, and that spells a dangerous fire weather situation.

Tuesday will start off even warmer with morning lows near 70 and strong southerly winds can be expected all day long. Humidity levels should be somewhat higher as dew points start to increase, but it will still be a dangerous fire weather situation with temperatures again ranging from the upper 80s into the 90s.

As the week wears on, some changes aloft will gradually increase the humidity levels, bring in more cloud cover, and also give us at least a chance of a shower or storm on just about any given day. That combination will lower temperatures somewhat, although still above normal for this time of year. As far as the chances of rain are concerned, will maintain at least a slight chance on any given day right on through this coming weekend. Do not have enough confidence in the longer range guidance just yet to pick out which day would have the best chance as the models are still not being very consistent. There will likely be at least one day later this week or perhaps over the weekend in which we will have a pretty good chance of receiving some badly needed rainfall, just too much uncertainty at this point to say with any confidence which day that will be.

So after a fall-like day today, back to summer-time for the next few days which will be followed by a more unsettled pattern later in the week with at least a chance for rain.

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

Dick Faurot