High Fire Danger

We're tracking a few items of interest this morning, including a few showers and storms to our northeast, a frontal boundary to our north, and another day of high fire danger potential across the region. 

Thunderstorms from last night generated an outflow boundary and this boundary is moving southward into northern OK this morning.  A few showers or storms can't be ruled out just behind this boundary between now ( 430AM) and 9AM across extreme northeastern OK.  The winds may shift to the north in Tulsa for a few hours this morning before the boundary becomes diffuse later today.  Southwest winds will develop this afternoon and increase speeds ahead of a cold front allowing for very hot temperatures and a very high fire danger.

The weak boundary is located to our north this morning and will be sliding southward tonight and early Tuesday morning.  This boundary will bring a chance of storms to the region tonight and early Tuesday to the northeastern part of the state.  Temperatures will also come down a little Tuesday and more so Wednesday with the role of northeast winds and more cloud cover. 

The temperatures today could soar again into the 108 to 110 range due to southwest winds ahead of the boundary combined with relatively dry air near the surface.  The fire danger will be extremely high today and tonight and a Red Flag Warning will be posted for portions of northeastern OK this afternoon and early evening. 

The middle of the week should feature a little break from the 110 temps with highs around 96 to 101.  

Another front is likely to arrive by the end of next week as the mid level ridge will be positioned to the west allowing for a northwest flow aloft brushing the northeastern part of the state.  A few clusters of storms will be able to move across the region into the weekend along with clouds, north winds (at times) and some temperatures in the 90s. 

The sun angle is continuing to change and this does play a role in our weather including the duration of the incoming solar radiation.  This also plays a significant role in helping to change the hemispheric pattern, including the transition from summer to fall.  It's hard to imagine, but this transition is slowly occurring right now.  We're not able to experience major impacts of this slow change in terms of major temperature changes, but we will benefit from the sun angle change soon.  The first sign of this change is the westerly air flow beginning to slowly migrate southward, and arguably, this is starting to slowly occur now. Unfortunately we are not looking at any major cool down anytime soon. 

The bottom line:  some minor relief will be likely at times this week with some scattered storms.  Today will be extremely hot with a front arriving later tonight.