Hello Sunshine

The upper level low responsible for a White Christmas in Eastern New Mexico and the Texas high plains is now moving eastward into the southern US.  Rain and snow will continue to march eastward but our location behind the boundary will bring us sunny and mild weather today with highs in the lower 50s. Northwest breezes in the 10 to 15 mph may create a minor wind chill today and big coat weather is still justified.  It appears a warming trend will commence soon despite a fast moving upper level wave moving across the area Wednesday night into Thursday.  Only a few clouds will be expected with this feature and highs will move into the upper 50s and lower 60s Thursday and Friday. 

The pattern will be stable through the end of the week but the EURO and GFS both suggest a decent chunk of cold air will move southward Sunday into Monday bringing another day or two of temps below the seasonal average.  There may be a few showers or storms across extreme Eastern OK and western Arkansas with the frontal passage Sunday but the chance will be too far east to mention for the Tulsa metro.  We may carry a slight pop for this period to highlight the slight chance for far eastern OK. 

The Sunday-Monday front is stronger in the EURO compared to the GFS and I have lowered the numbers for Monday and Tuesday, but not as low as the EURO would suggest.   

As I wrote here yesterday, we're starting to move into the climatologically favored periods for shallow arctic air intrusions, but at this point there are no major hints this will occur during the next five days across the southern plains, but I do see some hints of much colder air invading the northern high plains into the upper Midwest early next week.  Stay tuned.  The EURO from last night is bringing the leading edge of an arctic type air mass into the southern plains Monday and Tuesday, but the GFS is not as aggressive. 

Next:  I always am thankful that you still take time to read this forecast discussion.  I realize you are extremely busy, but thanks again very much for stopping by this morning.  You are invited to follow me on Twitter ( alancrone) and of course head over to the fan page on Face book and hit the " like" icon on the fan page.  If you are currently a friend on my profile page, I would encourage you to move to the fan page soon.  I'll spread some more details about this during the next few days, because we'll have very little sensible weather to discuss until we reach the weekend!

Enjoy.

Alan