Active Weather Remains With Rain and Cooler Weather

Welcome to June. At least the upper air pattern suggests it more like “June” than July.

The mean ridge of high pressure is centered to our west and southwest and the upper airflow is from the northwest to southeast. This flow is very common in early June but will stick around for most of the week bringing rain and storm chances along with not as hot weather. Some muggy weather occasionally will remain, but most locations will get a nice respite from the heat for the next 7 days.

This morning we’re already tracking additional storms near and west of the area that will move slowly east through the morning hours. A flash flood watch is now posted for part of NE OK through the next few days. While some pockets of moderate to heavy rainfall will be likely in and near the watch outline, some locations across southeastern and far east-central OK will remain dry, or at least have lower chances for showers and storms compared to the western regions.

The Tulsa metro will remain with moderately high chances today and Wednesday, even though we’ll be dry for some of this period. The strong front arrives Thursday night with a round of strong to severe storms and more heavy rainfall in a few locations.

We’re tracking a slow-moving MCV this morning across central OK. Combined with the low-level jet, showers and storms have been numerous overnight along the I-44 region, but less so across far southeastern OK. This feature will continue slowly moving east this morning with additional showers before the activity thins-out by early afternoon. Additional showers and storms are likely again tonight in some of the same areas that will receive rain this morning. A very high moisture content in the atmosphere will promote heavy rainfall with the slow-moving cells. I also need to stress that some locations, even in the flash flood watch area, could remain dry at times.

The ridge to our west may become slightly stronger by the end of the week, and this would increase the upper flow over southern Kanas and northern OK Thursday night and Friday morning helping to bring even more storms across the area. The deep layer shear will be increasing Thursday night and could bring us a few strong to severe storms near southern Kanas and northern OK. Outside of this period, any severe weather threats will remain isolated today and Wednesday and confined to a potential wet microburst. This same front also users in some pleasant weather for the weekend.

Temperatures will continue to drop below the seasonal averages. Highs today will stay in the lower to mid-80s with some heat index values around 90. Wednesday may also remain mostly in the lower to mid-80s before reaching near 90 Thursday. As the front crosses the area Thursday night into Friday, the weekend could easily support highs in the lower to mid-80s, along with north winds and lower humidity. Very unusual for the first weekend of August.

Thanks for reading the Tuesday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!