Cold Again Tonight, Warmer Sunday.

After a breezy, cool day today, temperatures will be dropping off rather quickly as soon as the sun goes down. Also, the winds will be subsiding with the setting sun which all adds up to another cold start to our day on Sunday. The map on the right, courtesy of the OK Mesonet shows the high and low temperatures so far today. Morning lows Sunday morning will be similar, but a more westerly wind for the morning becoming more NW during the afternoon should get us back into the 60s for daytime highs.

Unfortunately, those NW winds will become gusty again during the day with wind speeds back up around the 15-25 mph range by afternoon. Together with relative humidity levels dropping into the 20% range, that will result in another high fire danger situation. We will also have lots of sunshine with just a few high level cirrus clouds for the next few days.

Monday will see a return to brisk southerly winds, warmer temperatures, and relative humidity levels closer to 30% during the afternoon. That means the fire danger will once again be an issue.

Stronger southerly winds for Tuesday will finally start bringing some moisture back into the state so partly cloudy skies and higher humidity levels will mitigate the fire danger somewhat. But, the strength of the winds will still create problems with winds expected to be gusting to 35 mph or more.

Our next chance of rain looks to start later in the day Wednesday as a storm system will be moving through the southern Rockies and headed out into the Plains during the Wed-Thu time frame. Southerly winds ahead of this should have abundant moisture in place by the time the actual cool front arrives Wednesday night. Also, there is better consistency regarding the precipitation placement and potential for this system so am starting to increase the probabilities for late Wednesday and particularly for Thursday. Right now, this system looks capable of dropping an inch or more of rain for our side of the state so it could turn out to be a rather wet system.

Unfortunately, the model consistency disappears for Friday and Saturday with one set of guidance keeping us cloudy, cool, and wet and another set of guidance clearing us out with sunshine and dry conditions. Since the ensembles are more supportive of the cool, dry solution that is the direction I have trended the forecast for now, but that is certainly subject to change.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot