Warm and Wind for the Arrival of Spring

The showers and storms yesterday dropped some pretty good hail at a few locations as you can see from some of the photos posted in the share section of our web site. They also dropped some pretty good rainfall as you can see from the image to the right. But, while they were locally generous, they were not very widespread and much of the state continues to be dry with very serious drought conditions continuing to worsen for portions of Oklahoma.

Today and tomorrow will only make matters worse as very strong southerly winds and lower humidity levels will lead to high evaporation rates. That combination will also lead to a very high level of fire danger for the next couple of days and many counties remain under a burn ban.

Look for southerly winds to be in the 15-30 mph range with higher gusts for much of the day today and again on Monday. Temperatures will be close to 20 degrees above normal for the next couple of days as well with afternoon high temperatures in the lower 80s. Dew point temperatures will be in the 50s so the afternoon relative humidity will drop into the 30% range. This combination also keeps our nights extremely mild and overnight temperatures will be in the 50s to lower 60s as compared to the 42 that is normal. So, with Spring officially arriving at 6:21 PM this evening, it will certainly be getting off to a very warm start.

Our next chance for storms will be late Tue or into the overnight hours along and ahead of the next cool front that will be pushing across the state. At this time of year, there will be at least a slight risk that any storms which do form could become severe.

The rest of the week will be cooler with a more N to NE wind component going into the weekend, but even at that temperatures will be running above normal. Also, several more systems look to be headed this way later in the week and into the coming weekend with the potential for showers and storms. Bottom line is that it appears that the next week or two will be potentially more unsettled with periodic chances of showers and storms.

As always, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot