Weekend Warm Up & New Year Cold Start

Cold weather was common during Friday afternoon as winds were from the NW and blowing off of a large snow field that now resides in the NW 1/3 of Oklahoma and most of Kansas. Winds will die down with

Friday, December 28th 2007, 6:38 pm

By: News On 6

Cold weather was common during Friday afternoon as winds were from the NW and blowing off of a large snow field that now resides in the NW 1/3 of Oklahoma and most of Kansas. Winds will die down with high moving overhead. Temps will drop as dewpoints have now fallen into the lower 20s and I expect even upper teens by Sat. AM.

Saturday will bring a light south wind to the area as the high moves east and will keep all winds in the viewing area blowing from source areas with no snow. This will allow for a nice warm up to near normal levels in the mid 40s. Sunday will be warmer than normal as the next system moves over the Rockies. This will produce south to southwest winds in the range of 10-15 mph by Sun. PM and nice warm air advection kicking in.

GFS continues to show a glancing blow of cold Arctic air that will move through on Monday. At first the coldest part of the air mass will be somewhat lagging behind so true cold air will not arrive until afternoon. Winds on the grids show 15-25 mph but I
would think that 30+ gusts possible from TUL to the north during the late PM. Wind chills would then need to be highlighted for the forecast.

Party goers on New Year's Eve will need to be aware of wind chills approaching 0. This will be a potentially dangerous combination so we need to make sure viewers are aware of the danger.

Glancing blow will be hanging on through Wed. PM with some modification of the air mass by late in the day. Better warm weather pattern tries to push modified Arctic air out the area by late afternoon.

Extended models continue to hint at a much warmer and somewhat drier pattern setting up but that is yet to be seen...

TM