Wednesday Morning Update

The extreme heat may top out today in the 110 to 115 range.  The fire danger may be very high today with southwest winds and low humidity during the late afternoon hours. 

We hit 112 for a brief period yesterday afternoon after starting yesterday morning at a balmy 88.  Both temperatures set records:  the 88 tied the all-time warm low temperature that was set the day before, and the 112 surpassed the 108 recorded in 1980.  Our temperature forecast today would also result in another daily record high temperature and we may be very close to the all-time record high of 115 from 1936.    

The data continues to support at least a mention of a few isolated showers or storms across part of southern Kansas or Northern OK.  The ridge of high pressure will nudge slightly westward and will create a very small northwest flow aloft that brushes the northern part of the state.  The NAM has been very bullish in bringing a disturbance on top of this ridge today and creating some elevated showers and storms.  This seems somewhat suspicious.  I'll keep a mention for the on air portion of the broadcast but will not include any real pops on the 7 day planner. 

Trav added a 20% pop for Sunday as the tail end of a disturbance may brush the state with a few scattered storms.   I'll keep the pop and add a slight pop for the Monday time period.  

The GFS and EURO, while slowly decreasing the 850 temps after today and tomorrow, will still offer the mid-level ridge strong enough and close enough to our region to keep the triple digit temps on the board for most of next week.  The morning lows may eventually drop into the upper 70s or lower 80s in the actual Tulsa metro this weekend into part of early next week.  Some of the rural outlying areas will see morning lows dropping into the mid or lower 70s by the end of this week.  Regardless, the heat wave will continue with no major relief in sight.  In other words, while a few scattered or isolated storms will be possible, the upper air pattern is not expected to change significantly and no major storm system will be entering our area.  

 The normal high temperature is 94 with the average low of 73.   Today's daily record high is 110 recorded in  2011 and also in 1923.  The all-time record high for Tulsa is 115 recorded August 10, 1936. 

Precipitation for the month remains at  1.38 and is now resulting in a rainfall deficit of -5.61 inches for the year compared to our normal total of 24.54 inches of precipitation. 

Sunrise today is a 6:31AM and sunset tonight will occur at 8:28 PM.