More Warm Air

Another unseasonably warm afternoon is expected with highs moving into the lower or mid-80s.  Morning clouds are expected to persist for several hours before giving way to partly cloudy conditions this afternoon.  South winds in the 15 to 25mph range will be likely.  A few isolated storms are possible but not very likely today.

The forecast remains basically unchanged from previous advertisements:  windy and warm with a slight chance of a thunderstorm.   

The upper air flow will bring a few fast moving and generally weak upper level waves into the region soon.  Combined with abundant low level moisture, scattered storms seem likely, but the overall coverage and exact location of any storm activity will require a low probability forecast for this short term cycle.

Model data indicated a few isolated storms would form this morning across far southeastern OK and northeast Texas, but as of this hour (4:30AM) we have yet to see this attempt.

A surface trough to the west may produce a few showers or storms tomorrow, and a few storms may also form in southern Kansas or extreme NE Ok early tomorrow morning.  These chances also remain quite low and we'll keep a 20 pop on the board.

Friday into Saturday we're seeing slightly higher QPF signals for a few organized storms as a vort travels in the southwest flow over the state.  We'll keep a 30 pop for the Friday and Saturday periods.

Temperatures will be very mild with morning lows in the lower to mid-60s and highs in the upper 70s to near 80 through the weekend.

The extended range models (GFS-EURO) both indicate a major trough will approach Monday and Tuesday with a high likelihood of thunderstorms, some possibly severe and the potential will continue for heavy rainfall.  Because the models have been anything but consistent this season with timing, I'll not increase the pops into a likely category for this forecast cycle just in case the timing flips again.  At this point the output of both models would suggest storms likely Monday afternoon and evening into the Tuesday time period.  The upper air flow will be mainly south to north allowing for a relatively slow eastward progression of the storm system.   Spring break is next week for may Oklahoma school systems, and we encourage you to remain aware of this system for your planning purposes.

We'll be approaching some record temperatures for the next few mornings with morning lows in the 60s.  Our normal high temperature is usually around 61 for many locations across eastern OK with the normal lows near 40 degrees.