Warm and Windy Next Few Days.

I mentioned this morning about the lack of snow cover for the High Plains States and the map to the right shows that very clearly. The snow from Missouri on E and NE is from the event of a couple of days ago and that snow will not be sticking around for long. More importantly for our weather though is the lack of snow to our N and NW. Since most of our cold fronts come from that direction, the years in which there is a lot of snow just north of us means the air behind the periodic cold fronts will not have much of a chance to moderate before reaching us. This year, that is not the case and when we do get some cold air down here it does not last very long and moderates rather quickly.

That has certainly been the case with this last system as the high on Thursday was only in the mid 30s, we made it back into the 50s this afternoon, will be in the 60s on Sunday and near 70 on Monday. That will be followed by our next cold front which will provide a brief, but significant cool down for Tuesday into Wednesday morning before temperatures quickly moderate once again.

And as has been the case, this next system looks to be a mostly dry one. There will be a chance for a few showers from Sunday night through Monday night for the extreme E and SE counties, but even there anything that may fall will be very light. Most of the moisture is being shunted further east as the winds at the surface and aloft will be shifting to a more SW direction in advance of the cold front.

Speaking of the winds, the gusty NW winds of this morning will be nearly calm by this evening and will be back to a SE direction by early Sunday morning. After that, they will quickly become strong and gusty during the day Sunday and through the day Monday. Those gusty southerly winds will also produce an enhanced fire danger situation along with the much above normal temperatures.

Gusty northerly winds on Tuesday will keep us in the 40s and a cold start to Wed morning will be followed by a nice rebound going into the latter part of the week. A weak boundary may affect the winds on Saturday, but it does not appear to have much in the way of cold air to work with and there is little or no mention of precipitation either.

In fact, the longer range guidance keeps us in this general pattern with no major changes currently anticipated. There are still no definite signals of any true, blue arctic air coming this way anytime soon nor any significant wintry weather events currently on the horizon.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates. After all, this is Oklahoma in January and things can change in a hurry.

Dick Faurot