Muggy March Weather Continues

Warm weather has been no stranger to Oklahoma this year, but it has usually been accompanied by dry air. That is no longer the case as the Gulf of Mexico is wide open and continues to funnel up moisture into Oklahoma. We have seen evidence of this with the increased cloud cover throughout the region. This southerly flow is actually acting to moderate our temperatures now as the warm winds now bring in enough moisture to create cloud cover and reduce the amount of sunshine we've previously seen.

The result? Warmer mornings, but slightly cooler afternoons than we saw Tuesday. The map above shows the extremely warm (but not record-breaking for area) high temperatures yesterday. With added clouds and the possibility of scattered showers and thunderstorms, our expected highs are leveling off around 80 degrees. This pattern will persist through the weekend with weather conditions that mimic Florida. Even without record-setting high temperatures for March, we DID set a record WARM low Wednesday. The temperature only dropped to 63 degrees at Tulsa International Airport, blowing out the previous "warm low" record of 58 set back in 1944. Keep in mind, our average high temperature for this date is 62… cooler than our morning low! That really gives us perspective of how unusual this pattern is for mid-March!

We haven't seen any real showers or thunderstorms develop across the area, but some weak disturbances will quickly pass through the Southern Plains as the week goes on so the rain chances will increase a bit. Nothing all that severe is expected until the monster trough forming out west moves into the Plains early next week. At this point, some severe weather remains possible, but flooding rains may become the biggest issue. We will continue to refine that Spring Break forecast and I'll have an update this weekend on the upcoming storm system. For more updates, be sure to follow me on Twitter: @GroganontheGO and "like" me on Facebook!