Storms Possible Late Saturday.

Notice to the right the minimum temperature map for today courtesy of the OK Mesonet. It is immediately obvious that the eastern side of the state was much cooler than the more western counties. In fact, it was another frosty start for many of us this morning but that will be changing for the next several days. The southerly winds that resulted in milder temperatures to the west will keep us milder to start the day on Saturday. In fact, most of us should start the day in the 40s and will quickly warm into the 70s during the day.

Look for those SE winds to pick up a bit to around the 10-15 mph range and that will also bring somewhat higher dew points back into the area. That, together with a NW flow pattern aloft and a disturbance embedded in that flow will be just enough to cause some showers and storms to pop up late Saturday and into the overnight hours. These will be most likely to the SE of the I-44 corridor and particularly S of I-40. However, those storms that do form will have enough directional shear that they may become organized enough to drop some small hail and cause locally damaging winds. Thus, there is a very slight chance of a few to become marginally severe.

Some locations may also pick up a quick ½ inch or so of rain, but those rains are not anticipated to be widespread so this will certainly not do much to alleviate the drought situation. Sunday will see a weak boundary in the area with southerly winds ahead of the boundary and northerly winds behind it. That boundary will wash out by Monday with gusty southerly winds returning for Mon and Tue. That, in turn, will bring our daytime temperatures back into the 80s and together with low humidity levels and mostly sunny skies will create another high fire danger situation.

Beyond that, the longer range guidance keeps flipping around. Earlier this week, the solutions were suggesting a very cold, wet period for the middle to latter part of next week; then the solutions became more progressive so we would still be much cooler, but not as wet; now they are flipping around again creating additional uncertainty from Wed through the latter part of next week. About the only consistency has been that a stronger cold front will arrive late Tue or during the overnight hours. That will result in a return to much cooler conditions once again, but the whens and wherefores regarding precipitation are very much up in the air. For now, will call for a decent shot at additional rainfall Wed with the caveat that it may well extend into Thursday and perhaps Friday.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot