Friday Noon Update

Good afternoon.  Some snow will continue across eastern OK for the next few hours.  Temperatures will remain in the upper teens and lower 20s.  

We have made no changes to the extended forecast at this point.  We made changes to today's snowfall forecast about an hour ago, but I haven't had time to post a blog update until recently.

 The system today has turned about to be stronger than I anticipated. 

I had a 1 to 3 inch potential across portions of Northeastern OK with higher amounts south.  It appears some 4 to near 6 inch totals may be possible near and east of Tulsa this afternoon.  Our friends at the National Weather Service have upgraded the winter weather advisory to a winter storm warning.  This warning will remain through 9pm tonight, but the snow will end in Tulsa around 2 to 4 pm and will exit the state around 6pm.

 We'll continue to have at another chance of wintry precipitation Sunday and another system Wednesday.

Clouds will clear Saturday with morning lows in the mid to upper teens and afternoon highs finally moving into the upper 30s or lower 40s before more clouds approach the state. Southwest breezes at 10 to 15 mph will be common. The massive snow pack across the northern third of the state will still stick around but above freezing temps and some sun will help out in a small way.

The upper air flow will remain from the northwest over the state. Extended model data support another fast moving wave approaching the state Sunday with a chance of some rain changing to snow across northern OK. More importantly another surge of arctic air will move southward Sunday into Monday bringing very cold air back to the region. This will set the stage for morning lows and afternoon highs to be below freezing for most of next week. The Sunday system could produce some measurable snow across the northern third of the state with this clipper like system. Even if this snowfall verifies, the amount would be in the 1 to 2 inch accumulation range. The EURO and GFS both suggest another major system will be possible around the middle of next week. The GFS would bring the system into the area Tuesday evening while the EURO suggests a Wednesday time frame for this potentially strong system. We can't get too overly concerned with this system which is 6 days out, but the expected track of this storm combined with the depth of cold air that should be in place would support multi-inch amounts of snow across the state.

 Long range trends seem to support a possible upper air change by Saturday February 12th through the middle of the month. This would support some warmer air but the storm track would continue to be active. Until this period, cold arctic air would continue to dominate the forecast with periodic snow chances.