This Morning - Coldest of the Season So Far.

Temperatures this morning were, for many of us, the coldest so far this season. Notice the map on the right, courtesy of the OK Mesonet for example. And, the south wind we have had today has been a rather cold south wind as lots of cirrus clouds have slowed down the warm-up somewhat. Those southerly winds will continue through the night tonight together with some of the cirrus cloud cover which will keep us from being as cold as we were this morning. Still, we expect temperatures to be in the 20s to around 30 to start the day.

A rather weak frontal boundary will arrive during the morning hours of Thursday for Tulsa and by early afternoon for the more southern locations. This will slow down the warm-up as our winds return to a more northerly direction. It should also result in a rather pronounced north to south temperature gradient as the shallow colder air is expected to keep the more northern locations in the low-mid 40s whereas south of I-40 temperatures may reach well into the 50s.

That shallow boundary should be washing out quickly on Friday with a return to southerly winds and moderating temperatures area-wide. That is, until late in the day when yet another system will be pushing across the state shifting our winds back to northerly once again. By this time, there may be enough moisture for a chance of showers, but right now it appears that the deeper, better quality moisture will be shunted off to the east. So, only a few isolated showers for the more eastern counties are now in the forecast for Friday night.

The more N to NE winds for much of the day on Saturday should keep us cooler than on Friday, but those winds will be changing back around to a more E or SE direction by late in the day. After that, there is not a lot of consistency regarding the longer range solutions provided by the extended computer models. The very strong storm systems that are impacting the Pacific NW states are just not being handled very well as they move on across the mountains and into the Plains States. This is creating lots of uncertainty as we head into next week. About the best that can be said is that we will be seeing a more unsettled period of potentially more active weather with at least a decent shot of showers or storms before the week is out. Not a lot of confidence regarding which day to focus on at this time though.

In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot