Fire Danger Today, Severe Storms Possible Tuesday.

Several issues to deal with over the next few days. First is the strong southerly winds and attendant high fire danger we will have this afternoon. Southerly winds of 30 mph or more together with a relative humidity dropping into the 20% range and temperatures reaching the upper 70s to lower 80s has resulted in a Red Flag Fire Warning being issued for portions of E OK.

The winds are not expected to be quite as strong on Monday as we will likely have a Gulf stratus deck to start the day and that will be slow to burn off. The low clouds have the effect of limiting the amount of mixing of the stronger winds aloft down to the surface which more commonly occurs with fair skies such as we will have today. At any rate, it will be much above normal again on Monday, but the humidity will also be much higher which will mitigate the fire danger to a certain extent.

An isolated shower or two could pop up over the extreme eastern counties late in the day Monday, but Tuesday is expected to be the busier day. As you can see from the graphic on the right, there will be a risk of severe storms for late Tuesday and into the overnight hours. A dry line will be moving into Central Oklahoma during the day and a cool front will be following along behind it that night. This is a somewhat similar set-up to what we had last Thursday with the exception that the upper level features are not as favorable. This pattern will be closely watched over the next couple of days as additional data becomes available.

Wednesday looks to be cooler as we will be behind the cool front with a brisk northerly wind.

The rest of the week looks unsettled with showers or storms possibly returning on Thursday and possibly another cool front arriving late Friday with another round of showers or storms, some possibly severe. The longer range guidance becomes completely out of phase by the Fri-Sun time frame leading to very little confidence in which solution will verify.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot