Friday Morning Update

The forecast is finally ready to reveal that big bright object in the sky for a while but not before some morning clouds and sprinkles.

 High based showers developed overnight as a powerful jet steak in the upper levels of the atmosphere zoomed over the Missouri valley region.  This area of light shower activity or sprinkles will continue to the east for a few more hours.  I will not include this on the graphical 7 day planner as the streak should be east of Tulsa by sunrise, but will provide a few showers across eastern OK through 11am.

 Temperatures will be moving into the upper 60s and lower 70s today and near 80 tomorrow and even the mid 80s Sunday before another strong cold front comes crashing into the area Monday.

 The fire danger issues may be increasing this weekend as gusty south winds return Saturday and Sunday.  Late Saturday evening and early Sunday morning we may see a few showers or storms develop as moisture begins to slide back across the area.  This probability remains around 20%, but this chance actually reflects the low coverage of expected storms that will form. 

The system Monday could be a trouble maker depending upon the timing.  If it's early, like Sunday afternoon early, a few storms could be quite severe.  But the layer of warm air aloft (the cap) will be very strong Sunday afternoon.  If the system arrives Monday afternoon we'll have the same severe threat.  But current data supports a Monday morning passage. This solution more than likely means morning temperatures in the 60s falling into the 50s for the afternoon with a squall line of storm activity developing.  Despite the early morning passage, some severe storms are possible.

The data continues to flip around regarding the systems upper air structure.  Will the systems upper air low " close off " creating a chance for cold rain Tuesday or will it rapidly move eastward allowing for sunny and mild conditions Tuesday afternoon?  A few days back this system was supporting an April blizzard across northeastern OK!   The EURO has had a short term history of closing off the upper systems and lingering them longer.  But today the GFS is the model that is closing off the low and bringing a chance of rain mixed with snow to northeastern OK Tuesday.  The data supports 850 temps from -2 to -4 Tuesday morning through midday.  Brrrr.   The model data for Tuesday has been flipping more than a local Optimist Club member on Pancake Day.

I think the prudent call is to keep Tuesday precip free and cool.  But, if the data somehow converges on a closed solution, we'll be adding colder air Tuesday and a chance of morning sleet or rain mix.

Next:

I'm the last one standing.  It started last Sunday night and early Monday morning, and it has worked its way through our family sans me.  The culprit: a very nasty virus that rolled through sister, brother, and finally mother knocking them  off their feet and emptying their  bodies of all kinds of things for about 18 hours solid.  They started a recovery process a day later and just remained in bed.  By day three, they got back up and where ready to do something, and even ready to eat something. 

 And somehow, I have managed to keep away from the germ.  I may be celebrating my success too early.  I'll let you know Monday.