Dick Faurot's Weather Blog: Cold, Possible Fog Before Warming Trend

They let me out of my cage over the past week and the weather certainly got interesting while I was gone, particularly starting on Thanksgiving Day, so thought I would provide a recap.

Fortunately, this side of the state largely missed out on the ice, but there was plenty of rainfall, as you can see on the 5-day rainfall map, courtesy of the OK Mesonet. More specifically, for the official records maintained in Tulsa, the period from Nov 26-30 now stands as the 2nd wettest ever for those dates with a total of 4.27”. Also, the two days of Nov 26-27 are the wettest ever over for those specific days, and that brings our monthly total to 7.21” which is tied for the 4th wettest November on record.

On an annual basis, the 53.19” through the day today makes this the 8th wettest such period on record, and is 14.71” above normal for Jan-Nov. In case you are wondering, the wettest period was back in 1973 when 66.49” had fallen for the first 11 months of the year.

That was then, but what about now and looking ahead? Well, the cloudy, gloomy, wet conditions of the last few days will finally give way to sunny skies in the days ahead, with no mention of rainfall until, perhaps, this coming weekend. The cloud cover and drizzle of today kept us with a real short thermometer, as you can see on the max/min temperature map, with not much variation from the morning low to the daytime high.

Current trends suggest our skies will be clearing from W-E during the overnight hours, and with light winds and all the moisture in place, that could result in patchy fog, particularly in the valleys. Also, temperatures will be near the freezing mark at most locations to start the day which could result in a few slick spots on bridges and overpasses for a brief time near sunrise.

After that, as you can see on our forecast page, conditions will be gradually improving for the rest of the week. Notice that each of the next few nights will be at or below freezing, but lots of sunshine each day will help to start a warming trend. A weak frontal boundary arriving on Wed and the associated northerly winds will only provide a brief bump in the road as we head toward the warmer temperatures expected in time for the coming weekend.

As for any additional rain chances, we expect to remain dry until, perhaps, late Sunday or into the day Monday. Another system will be moving across the state by then, but it looks to be moisture starved, so will keep a low chance of rain for the time being. Also, the air behind this system does not look to be overly cold, so, cooler but not bitter cold air will follow that system going into early next week.

In fact, looking further down the road, the 8-14-day outlooks suggest temperatures will average above normal not only for OK but for most of the country during that time frame. Also, precipitation looks to average near normal over those days as well.

So, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot