Warm and Windy.

Below normal temperatures first thing this morning have quickly rebounded with temperatures already above normal by the Noon hour. Lots of sunshine is helping with the warm-up, but gusty SSW winds are helping even more. Those winds will settle down somewhat with the setting sun this evening, but will not be calming down as has been the case over the last few nights. Southerly winds will continue at 10-15 mph or more through the overnight hours and that will keep us from cooling much tonight with overnight lows expected to be in the 60s to start the day Wednesday.

Aloft, a strengthening low level jet will be developing during the overnight hours and the warm air advection pattern associated with it may be just enough to cause a few showers or some thunder for the extreme NE counties and adjacent areas. As we go through the day Wednesday, our winds should be from a more southerly direction and will still be gusting to 25 mph or more for much of the day. Together with lots of sunshine, that should put us well into the 80s for afternoon highs during the day Wednesday with triple digits possible for the far western counties of OK.

More cloud cover is expected for Thursday into Friday so our nights will be quite mild with morning temperatures not much below 70. We expect enough sunshine during the day for afternoon temperatures to be reaching the 80s once again. Also, a frontal boundary will be stalling out along the OK/KS state line Thursday keeping any threat of showers/storms confined to the extreme northern counties.

That front will get pushed on through the state Friday night or early Saturday which will cool us off considerably for the coming weekend. Daytime highs should be in the 60s for Sat, Sun, and Mon along with mostly cloudy skies and a chance of showers or thunder. Brisk northerly winds for Saturday will be more NE on Sunday and E Monday. Right now, it appears that the pattern aloft will have a series of weak, embedded disturbances over the course of the weekend which makes it difficult to pick out which day will have the best chance of rain or storms. The current projections would favor the Mon-Tue time frame, but that is certainly subject to change.

So, after a couple of very cool days, we will be back to almost summer-like conditions for the next few days followed by another cool-down to end the month of April. As always, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot