Monday Morning Update

Expect a mostly sunny, windy, and warm day with highs in the lower to mid-90s.  Any storm activity will be very isolated and mainly to our south or southeast.

We missed out on some much needed rainfall over the weekend.  The models had indicated another MCS type event would occur late Saturday evening into Sunday morning, but only a few storms managed to form across eastern Kansas, and they moved into southwestern Missouri and not northern Oklahoma despite propagation vectors indicating a southerly movement with time.   Obviously the model data was wrong.  The forecast for the next few days is based mainly on pattern recognition and observational data rather than following any one model solution. 

We think the temps will be moving into the lower and mid-90s today and tomorrow with morning lows in the lower to mid-70s.  The pressure gradient should be increasing today and tomorrow allowing for strong southerly winds from 15 to near 30 mph.  This southerly flow will be increasing low level moisture from the gulf over Eastern OK and western Arkansas very soon, and this will increase the temperature heat index values by the end of the week.

We do take a suggestion by both the GFS and EURO models to mention the possibility of a few isolated storms Wednesday and Thursday across extreme Eastern OK and Western Arkansas as a mid-level feature will move up from the southeastern part of the nation.  This feature resembles an easterly wave and may provide higher isolated storm chances in central Arkansas Wednesday and Thursday, but I will make mention ON AIR regarding this low probability for Eastern OK.

The temperatures in the 5000ft level of the atmosphere will warm up quickly this week to our west and may slide eastward by the end of this week into the weekend.  These readings are more indicative of July than late June, and could push our surface temperatures into the upper 90s.  The moisture content at the surface will act to regulate the highs and keep them from crossing into the 100 degree mark, but the temperature heat index values will be above 100.

Yesterday in Tulsa: 94

Average normal high: 88  Low: 69

Sunrise today: 6:06AM  Sunset today: 8:44PM

MTD ( Month to date) rainfall;  3.89 ….currently 0.97 above average for the month.

YTD ( Year to date) rainfall:  17.15…..currently -2.23 below average for the year.