Another Mild Afternoon

We expect mostly sunny conditions across most of the area today with highs in the mid to upper 60s.  North winds from 5 to 12 mph will be common.  Rain and storm chances will increase Thursday night into Friday.

A weak boundary has stalled across southeastern OK this morning.  Some patchy but dense fog will be likely near this boundary until the front slides southeast mid-morning.  Locations from east central to southeastern Ok will have the fog issues through at least the 10am hour.  A few isolated showers or storms cannot be ruled out near these areas and points southeast for the day.  These probabilities and the fog issues will not impact the Tulsa metro.

The boundary will slide southward and then return as a warm front Thursday evening into Friday as the next major upper level storm dives closer to the region.  Model data is now a little closer together regarding the positioning of the closed type low and will bring the system to near western Ok Friday and lift the low into the southern Iowa area by Saturday afternoon or evening.  Strong winds aloft will move over the state Thursday evening into Friday while abundant low level moisture will stream northward due to strong south winds.  Bufkit soundings for Tulsa indicate a low CAPE value and low instability, but the dynamics of the system will be strong.  Some severe weather will be a possibility Friday, but at this point the higher likelihood of severe weather may remain south where the deeper moisture content will be located.  Consequently the better lift will remain just north of the deeper moisture environment.

The timing of the system will continue to be watched and adjusted.  At this point, we'll begin the pops Thursday evening and continue through Friday afternoon.  The 06 NAM indicates moisture may be veered slightly east faster than the other models indicate and a dry slot will move across the region by midday.  This is an outlier with both the GFS-EURO suites indicating a healthy rainfall environment through early afternoon before the dry slot moves across the region Friday night.  The wrap around on the back side of the big upper level low will more than likely stay northwest of our area, but I'll keep the slight 20 pop in the Saturday forecast as the low rapidly moves northeast into the Midwestern portion of the nation.

We'll see a modest cool down this weekend with lows in the lower 30s and highs in the upper 40s or lower 50s.  No major cold air will be moving into the state over the next 5 days, but some seasonally cool air may arrive by the middle of next week.