Good Weather News Abounds!

As the title suggests, there is quite a bit of good news to share with you! From the drought to the forecast and beyond, things are looking up for many folks in Oklahoma.

Speaking of looking up, you'll want to be sure to do that tonight. The Leonid Meteor Shower will be peaking. This is usually one of the better heavenly shows of the year. However, the bright moonlight might be in competition with the shooting stars. Still, it might be worth checking out since skies will be clear tonight!

Clear skies last night led to a hard freeze all throughout Green Country. Temperatures bottomed out around 28° in Tulsa with sub-freezing readings for nearly 8 hours. This will help to do away with the remaining allergens. Many allergy-sufferers (like myself) have been awaiting this freeze!

For those not ready to dive into winter-like temperatures, here's more good news: a warming trend is starting to take place. Most places should remain above the freezing mark tonight and gusty south winds will boost our temperatures into the 60s on Friday and lower 70s on Saturday! It might even be worthy of the name, Indian Summer! We'll have to be especially careful over the next several days with fire though due to the gusty winds and dry conditions.

Although Oklahoma remains in a dry state of affairs, there is good news even at this front. The latest Drought Monitor shows marked improvement in eastern Oklahoma. Much of Tulsa has been downgraded to a moderate drought (see the map above). Even a portion of far eastern Oklahoma is now in the "abnormally dry" category, which is the lowest drought classification. The area of severe drought dropped 10% in coverage in our state as well. Far southeastern Oklahoma along with the northwestern portion of the state still remain in dire conditions though. These areas have not seen plentiful rains recently like the rest of the state.

The reason we're seeing so much improvement in our area is thanks to the increase in rainfall over the past month or two. In fact, Tulsa International Airport is nearly 2 inches above the average amount of rain for November so far. The drought still is apparent in our year-to-date deficit of rainfall of 8.5 inches. We are still calling for a drier-than-normal winter, but with another heavy-duty rain-maker in the forecast early next week, we will hopefully chip away further at this epic drought.

Oh, and one more piece of good news to share. Although it's a week away, the computer models have consistently shown dry, mild weather for Thanksgiving Day. The entire weekend may not be unspoiled by Mother Nature, but the holiday weekend will at least start on a positive note here in Oklahoma. I'll update the Turkey Day forecast in the coming days.

Be sure to tune in tonight to KOTV at 10pm. Our Winter Weather Outlook, presented by Travis Meyer, will be airing. We'll give you an idea of what kind of season to expect… hopefully that will be more good news for you as well!

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