Warming Up Today

We moved into the upper 50s and lower 60s yesterday and I see no reason why we wont be at least 4 to 5 degrees warmer this afternoon across the area.  Some machine numbers are staying the lower 60s but we've moved to a high of 65 today featuring mostly sunny conditions and southwest surface winds at 10 to 20 mph.   

A weak surface boundary will slide across the area tomorrow bringing a wind shift and temps just a few degrees cooler, but not by much.  Another mild winter afternoon will be expected tomorrow with mostly sunny conditions and very little cloud cover. 

The weekend still features a mild and warm day Saturday followed by a stout frontal passage Saturday evening into early Sunday morning.  The models (more so the EURO) has been consistently hinting at a significant cool down and we still think this is the way to trend for the Sunday through Tuesday period.  A few questions do remain regarding the exact magnitude of the air mass and how long the cold air will stick around?  The return flow appears Tuesday, but if the air mass is stronger than anticipated, the Tuesday numbers could also be quite low with highs in the lower 40s.  We have trended the Tuesday numbers up at this point, but we will be watching the data carefully over the next few days. 

The moisture content is suppressed well south of the state and only a few clouds will be expected with the next few frontal passages over northeastern OK. 

As stated here for the last few days, this is the favored time of year for true arctic air to break loose and slide southward into the nation.  We continue to see nothing in the short term, but experience and long range data suggests the pattern should support this type of a scenario within the next 2 weeks.  Stay tuned.