Super Great Weather Today

Sunny conditions will remain for most of the day with highs in the upper 50s or lower 60s.  A west wind around 10 mph will be common. A few high clouds will skirt across the region today, but the afternoon should be super nice compared to the approaching weather. 

Temperatures tomorrow also will be mild with morning lows in the upper 20s and highs in the lower to mid 50s despite a weak boundary sliding across the region.    

The Baja low currently off the California coastline will be moving eastward this weekend but the latest data indicates the system will be too far south to have a major impact on our area.  A few showers will be possible Saturday night with some snow showers possible Sunday morning across extreme southern OK but this system now appears to have only a slight chance of impacting our immediate area. I must caution that model data still has not sampled this system correctly and changes could be made, but the overall depiction in the model data is increasing our confidence of a southern track for this system.   

The surge of arctic air will arrive Monday along with a shortwave moving down the central plains.  This will provide some light snow shower activity across northern OK but this is not expected to be significant. Accumulating snow will be possible and gusty north winds could create some blowing snow issues. 

The cold air is expected to remain for the entire week but may modify either Thursday or Friday.  Regardless temperatures will be well below normal and below freezing for most of next week before possibly moving above freezing Friday and Saturday.  The model data continues to offer strong signals for eroding the air mass Thursday, but experience tells me to keep the cold air into the region longer. 

A few days ago, data was suggesting a period of nearly 8 days of temps below freezing.  This is not the case now.  The upper level features over the northern hemisphere including a high pressure ridge over Alaska may be too far west to keep the cross polar flow into the North America by the end of the week but most of next week appears cold.  We may have a respite the weekend of Jan 15-16 before another weak shot of cold air arrives Jan 17-18.

 I urge you to make preparations now for this cold air by taking care of automotive issues, wrapping exposed pipes, and making arraignments for livestock and pets for the expected prolong period of cold weather next week.