We Still Need Rain!

As mentioned yesterday, the rainfall was expected to be on the light side and that has so far been verified as you can see from the rainfall image on the right from the OK Mesonet. Less than ¼" of rain was the general rule with isolated heavier amounts where a few thundershowers developed. We still have a chance of lingering light rain showers for the rest of the day today and overnight, but any additional amounts will be on the light side as well. We also have a slight chance of a few showers for Wednesday and Thursday, but those will be spotty at best with the real coverage only on the order of 20-30% or so.

Bottom line is that we are still in need of a widespread, soaking, drought breaking rain and that does not appear to be in the cards anytime soon.

At least the clouds, cooler temperatures, and higher humidity levels are providing a break from the fire danger that was such a problem last week. Speaking of cooler temperatures, today happens to be the normal last Spring freeze date for the immediate Tulsa area. A number of locations nearby have had a light freeze over the last few days, and temperatures will remain well below normal for another day or two. However, the cloud cover will prevent temperatures from dropping below freezing until things start warming up by the coming weekend.

The cloudy skies will be very persistent through Thursday with only some occasional sunshine which will keep our daytime temperatures in the 40s to near 50 this afternoon, the 50s on Wednesday, and the 60s for Thursday. At night, upper 30s and lower 40s are expected which is not that far from normal, but our normal daytime highs should be in the upper 60s and we will not be close to that till possibly Thursday afternoon.

Much warmer weather will return in time for the weekend along with more sunshine and gusty southerly winds. This will also create dangerous fire weather conditions as there is no mention of rain until perhaps Sunday night. Another, fairly strong cool front is expected to arrive either Sunday night or Monday morning, but most of the rain with this system will once again be east of us. It will result in another cool-down however.

As to whether we will have a late Spring freeze, hard to say at this point. We do see more cool air coming our way over the next two weeks, but there is nothing unusual about that. A frost or a light freeze certainly cannot be ruled out for at least another week or two.

As always, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot