High Fire Danger For Northeast Oklahoma On Friday

Alan Crone, News On 6

Expect high thin clouds with filtered sun, windy conditions, and highs in the lower or mid 70s.  No rain is expected. 

The fire danger will be extremely high today across eastern OK and critically high across central and western OK.  Southwest winds at 15 to 30 mph combined with relatively low humidity during the afternoon will support rapid fire growth.  A number of fires were reported yesterday and weather conditions unfortunately will be more conducive to fire growth and spread today.

A fast but weak front will move over the area by 4AM Saturday but only a weak wind shift will be noted.  Highs Saturday and Sunday will be in the lower or mid 60s. 

A weak upper level system will be approaching Sunday evening into Monday morning promoting a chance of scattered showers and storms across the NE quadrant of the state.  Severe weather is not expected.

EURO and GFS data continue to be at odds regarding the outcome of next week.  The GFS set supports a weak boundary near northern OK with a few upper level waves moving over the area.  This would suggest a chance of scattered storms Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and possibly Thursday night into Friday morning.

The EURO, usually a more superior medium range model, is suggesting a chance of storms Monday, but no precipitation chances for the rest of the week. 

The upper air pattern is not expected to support a major system into the southern plains, but its very hard to believe we could finish next week with no storm chances.   After all, it's middle March, and typically we see storm chances almost every 3 to 5 days. 

Next:

Obviously the major 8.9 magnitude earthquake on the east coast of Japan is the big story of the day. A powerful tsunami has been generated and tsunami warnings have been issued for the entire west coast of the United States. 

I have included a few links of interest and will be attempting to update this section of the blog throughout the morning as time permits.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/

This link is to the Tsunami Warning Center.