Weekend Warm Up Underway For Northeastern Oklahoma

A chilly morning is underway, but not nearly as cold compared to yesterday at this hour.  Most of our temperatures this morning will start in the 30s with some minor wind chills before west to northwest winds bring us the first taste of warmer weather later today.  Temperatures will top out in the lower 60s for afternoon highs along with mostly sunny conditions and northwest winds near 10 to 25 mph.  The upper air pattern currently from the northwest to southeast will change later this weekend to a southwesterly flow aloft signaling the return of active weather by early next week.  This pattern will also bring a taste of spring like weather this weekend with afternoon highs reaching the lower 70s along with mostly sunny sky Saturday before clouds and gusty southwest winds arrive Sunday.  The potential for gusty winds combined with a drying ground cover may promote the growth of a rapid-fire spread rate across central to western OK this weekend, with a limited fire potential across eastern sections of the state.  

Along with breezy and cloudy weather Sunday, I continue to see the potential for increasing low level moisture that could support a few isolated showers or storms, mostly across extreme eastern OK or western Arkansas.  The only change I’ll make to the Sunday forecast at this point will be adding a slight mention (10%) for a few of these isolated cells across the far eastern sections. 

Most data support a cold front nearing the state Monday morning and passing into southeastern OK by the evening hours before stalling near or slightly south of the Red River Valley region.  The timing this morning is faster in most of the data, and we’ll adjust the Monday afternoon highs down a few degrees because of this faster arrival.  Any severe weather threats with the initial frontal surge Monday will more than likely remain across extreme southeastern OK or northeast Texas.  But if this system slows down, the severe weather areas may migrate closer to eastern OK by afternoon.  

The eventual resting position of this boundary will be crucial in determining where some heavy rainfall threats may occur Tuesday.  As of now, most data support this axis of higher moisture remaining slightly southeast of the state, but close enough to keep our mentions of rain and thunder in the forecast for Tuesday.  Confidence for Tuesday is now much lower than the last few days as we’re seeing a split in the global models regarding some important features.  Basically, the GFS is the outlier now with higher rain chances Tuesday, with the EURO and other data mostly dry or keeping the higher chances to the southeast.  I lowered our Tuesday pops from 70 to 60% in anticipation of possibly dropping even lower.  But will be holding for now, just in case the other models flip back to the wet solution.  I don’t like to make big changes based on one run of a computer model simulation. 

WARN Radar

The remainder of next week currently appears rather uneventful with slowly warming weather into the next weekend when another front may approach by Sunday. 

Thanks for reading the Friday morning weather discussion and blog. 

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone