Wednesday Morning Update

We expect another sunny and very warm day with highs in the mid-90s.  Our rain and storm chances will be increasing late Thursday into Friday due to the remnant of Isaac drawing near the region.  

The focus of this forecast discussion will center on Isaac's impact on our weather later this week. I'll post specific information regarding Isaac's current position and impact across southern Louisiana on my Facebook fan page.  

The system is slowly moving across southern Louisiana this morning and will be moving west-northwest during the next 24 hours before turning northward by early Friday morning.  Model data continues to support the remnant low pressure area moving close enough to Eastern OK Thursday evening and Friday to increase our rain and storm chances compared to yesterday's forecast.  There remains some question to the exact location of the low, but enough confidence exists to raise the probability for rain and storms to near 70% for the Friday time period.  The higher rainfall totals will more than likely be confined to areas east of Tulsa, more so east of the Ok-Arkansas state line.  

Model data continues to offer varying solutions to the exact path of the remnant low for our forecast concerns.  The NAM is slower and more west, while the GFS and EURO remain more east with the system.  The NAM data suggests the low will move to near Dallas-Sherman by Friday afternoon and be near the Creek county , just southwest of Tulsa Saturday morning.  The GFS would have the low near the OK-Ark State line late Friday evening and across southern Missouri early Saturday morning.  The EURO would place the remnant low east of Fort Smith by Friday afternoon and into southern Missouri early Saturday morning.  Regardless of which model solution we choose this morning, there will be a chance of rain and storm activity across Eastern OK by late Thursday night into Friday.  The difference in the model solutions would result in different totals for the region.  The slower and more westward leaning NAM would result in some multi inch rainfall totals across Eastern OK along the state line.  The GFS would offer some .50 to near 1 inch totals for Tulsa, with some multi inch totals mainly in east-central OK and western Arkansas, while the EURO would support higher totals to our east.  The tornado threat will more than likely remain well to our east, but if the slower NAM verifies, there would be a chance of isolated and brief tornadoes on the OK-Arkansas stated line Friday evening, but the greatly likelihood will still remain more east.  

Temperatures during the Friday time period will be in the lower to mid-80s with readings moving back into the 90s Sunday and early next week.  

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Thanks for reading!

Alan