Pleasant Temperatures For Northeastern Oklahoma

We’re not tracking any storms this morning across our immediate area. A few storms are located across far northwestern OK and should remain to our northwest for the morning hours. Any potential for a few storms nearby later today appears to be confined across central and southern Kansas. I have taken out the chance for storm activity today across most of northern OK even though a few storms may take a run at the state line region later today and tonight.  Pleasant temperatures now in the 50s and 60s will respond later in the upper 80s as south winds return across eastern OK along with some sunshine. I placed 90 on the big map for the metro.

The mean ridge of high pressure is located to our southwest.  A strong upper trough is located across the Great Lakes region along with a developing trough across the Pacific Northwest. The main upper air flow near the state will remain from the northwest for the next day or two before the ridge expands slightly nearby this weekend. The position of the ridge will mostly stay south as a wave of instability (small disturbance) will round the base of the Western U.S. trough and eject into the plains Saturday. Some differences remain regarding the strength and positioning of this feature which could be the difference between a few storms compared to a larger number for Friday night into Saturday. Before this wave arrives, we’ll keep a low chance for an isolated storm Thursday and Friday, but slightly higher chances Friday night into part of Saturday. The data regarding next week remain highly variable from model to model comparisons. We’ll deal with that later this week.  

The surface boundary that moved across the state Monday was reinforced by the boundary yesterday morning and is now south of the metro. Later today into tonight, this front is expected to lift northward as the next small wave drops across the Intermountain region. Light east to south winds will slowly return today along with slowly increasing low level moisture from tomorrow into the weekend. While excessive heat index values are still not expected across our area this weekend, a noticeable change will occur with heat index numbers nearing the mid-90s this weekend along with a few scattered storms. 

Next week, we would typically be expecting the ridge to center-up near the state and bring heat and dry conditions back to eastern OK. This may be the case in some but not all data. Most of the ensemble data support the mean positioning of the ridge remaining west. This would create another northwest flow pattern for most of next week, and possibly into the 4th of July Holiday weekend.  The various models are frankly all over the map with different solutions. We’ll give it a few days before making any major changes to the trends for next week. 

Thanks for reading the Wednesday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone