Warming Trend This Week.

Much above normal temperatures and sunny skies will quickly eliminate the snow cover.

Sunday, February 13th 2011, 9:30 am

By: News On 6

It won't be around much longer; the snow cover that is. Granted the snow piled up in parking lots and along the side of the road will take awhile longer to get rid of, but the ‘official' snow depth measurement will drop to zero within another day or two. If it makes it to Tuesday, that will be two solid weeks with snow on the ground which by the way is not even close to a record and barely gets us into the top 10.

What will be remarkable is the warm-up taking place this coming week. A weak cool front will be arriving during the overnight hours tonight, but this is a Pacific system so really not very cool. In fact, most of the cooling will be due to the northerly winds behind it will be coming off the deeper snow fields on up into KS and NE OK. Temperatures will be reaching the 60s at many locations this afternoon and still in the 50s on Monday which is above normal. Lots of sunshine both days will continue to eat away at the snow cover as well.

By Tuesday, our winds will be back to a southerly direction and becoming strong and gusty for the next few days after that. Enough moisture is expected to return with those winds for a stratus cloud deck and possibly some morning fog and drizzle or a few light showers for Tues and Wed. It still looks like lower 70s will be possible by Thursday as the snow will be long gone by then and with a strong SW surface wind there may well be an enhanced fire danger situation. The vegetation is dormant and the fine fuels such as the grasses and weeds will quickly dry out which could lead to wildfire problems during the day. Perhaps more remarkably is the potential for a 100 degree temperature swing from the record lows of this past Thursday morning when Nowata dropped to -31.

It now appears that a stronger cool front will arrive during the day Friday to bring temperatures closer to normal going into the coming weekend. This system also has the potential to bring some rain and showers with it, particularly by Sunday.

As always, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot