Mild Air with Rain Chances Soon

The front is on schedule and is moving across northern OK this morning bringing north winds and eventually cooler air.  Daytime highs will be around 10 degrees cooler compared to yesterdays mid and upper 80s, and we may see a few sprinkles or brief showers today behind the front but I'll not include these on the main graphics package this morning.  The better chances for showers or areas of rain will occur later tonight and early Thursday as a mid level wave rotates over the region. 

Model data continues to support the probability of activity developing later tonight to our west and northwest while pivoting across the state, or portions of the state, early Thursday.  This rain shield will allow some locations tomorrow to remain in the mid 60s for highs, while areas outside of the rain boundary will move into the lower or even mid 70s.  The exact coverage of the precip remains a little tricky, even 24 hours away from the event.  The NAM has been consistent in bringing the rain shield across the northern third of the state, while the GFS takes the bulls-eye mainly along and south of I-40.

We have raised our pops to 60%, and I could have gone even higher.  I'll give the models one more run before taking this pop to near 80%. 

 Surface winds are expected to move back from the south by Friday but the daytime highs should remain below normal Friday before moving slightly above normal by the weekend.  Some areas Friday morning could see fog for a few hours. 

The GFS of yesterday was attempting to bring some showers or storms across the eastern part of the state Sunday, but we discounted this solution by siding with the usually superior EURO model.  This morning's run of the GFS (actually late yesterday afternoons run) did not have this precip across eastern OK.  The GFS and EURO data have both suffered in the mid range performance lately, a little more than normal. 

 There is another tropical storm in the Atlantic this morning. 

Ophelia will move west to northwest and will be near Puerto Rico by early Monday morning as a tropical storm.  The official forecast from the National Hurricane Center keeps the system as a tropical storm through the next 120 hours, but at least one of the hurricane models will bring the system to about 76 knots late in the period.  I'll keep watching and posting information. 

 Thanks for reading the blog-discussion.  Have a super great day.