Nice Thursday

 The clouds finally cleared in Tulsa late yesterday afternoon allowing temperatures to move into the upper 40s and the lower 50s.  The morning we're starting with clear and cold conditions and we'll finish with sunny and mild weather this afternoon.  Today may be the best weather day we have experienced in the past week. Temperatures this afternoon will move into the upper 50s or lower 60s with sunny conditions. 

  Friday will feature gusty south winds and high cirrus cloud cover but the highs should be able to move into the lower 70s.  The fire danger will be increasing tomorrow across eastern OK and will be extremely high across western and central Oklahoma where a serious drought is underway. 

 A weak front will move across the area around 4AM Saturday morning but the lack of significant low level moisture will mean this boundary comes through the area with no rain and very little cloud cover.  High temperatures this weekend will be in the lower 60s with morning lows around 40 both days.

 Sunday the boundary will be moving back to the north from Texas as a warm front.  Moisture will attempt to also move back into the region and a few showers or storms may develop Sunday afternoon or evening.  Late Sunday evening or early Monday an upper level system will be approaching the area resulting in some scattered showers and storms.  The severe weather threat will be limited with this early week system.

Another wave will be approaching Wednesday and possibly by next weekend.  But the data continues to offer very little confidence in this time period of the forecast.

 Confidence for Now through Saturday: 10

Confidence from Sunday through Monday: 7

            Issues:  Rain chances.

Confidence from Tuesday through Friday:  6

            Issues:  Possible upper level waves embedded in the upper air flow.

Next:

I love to read. 

  Unfortunately, my schedule doesn't allow for long periods of down time, and it now takes me several weeks to finish a work. 

Here's a list I have finished in the past 6 months:

The War for Late Night, Bill Carter

Outliers, Malcom Gladwell

Forgotten God, Francis Chan

Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller

Decision Points, G. W. Bush

Wild Goose Chase, Mark Batterson

I'm currently reading:

Bonhoeffer, Eric Metaxas

Crazy Love, Francis Chan

And of course the January issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.  There is a fascinating article on the epic 2008 Chinese Ice storm that lasted for almost a month (in some locations) and impacted the Chinese economy with an estimated 20 billion dollar loss.  

I've been thinking a lot about the future lately.  But I ran across something two weeks ago in Francis Chan's Crazy Love that helped me put some things in proper perspective:

"In about fifty years (give or take a couple of decades), no one will remember you.  Everyone you know will be dead.  Certainly no one will care what job you had, what car you drove, what school you attended, or what clothes you wore.  This can be terrifying of reassuring, or maybe a mix of both. "

    Francis Chan, page 46, Crazy Love

This doesn't give me the right to coast at work or not pay my taxes or move to the beach and paint abstract landscapes while smoking a pipe.  But it does give me a little push- back to what is truly important.  I won't go into detail of what that looks like for me.  But it's encouraging me to slow down (when I can), count my blessings, and enjoy time with the family.  It should be simple, but of course it's complicated.