More Cold Air Ahead

Thursday, January 8th 2015, 4:39 am

By: Alan Crone

Clear sky, dry air, and relatively light winds have allowed surface temperatures to drop into the single digits this morning across a large portion of northern and eastern OK. Wind speeds in the 5 to 10 mph range will still create wind chill values from zero to -12 this morning for a few hours across part of the area as a surface ridge of high pressure nears the northern third of the state. A wind chill advisory will be required this morning. As the surface ridge moves eastward later today, wind speeds will quickly increase from the southwest in the 10 to 20 mph later today with mostly sunny conditions. Daytime highs, while warmer than yesterday, will still be cold. Many locations will top out in the lower to mid-30s across the eastern OK region. Another arctic cold front arrives tonight bringing north winds and temperatures back below freezing for Friday.

We're still tracking a few waves for the next few days. The main impacts for the first two systems should be minimal.

Saturday evening into Sunday a system will approach the state from the southwest bringing a few areas of rain or mix precip into part of northeast Texas Saturday evening. Some of this system should clip extreme southeastern OK Sunday morning into the afternoon with a small chance of light freezing rain during the early Sunday period. The thermal profile should warm across southeastern OK allowing a chilly rain Sunday midday to afternoon. Amounts and coverage will be very small. The coverage of this system during the day Sunday will be near Ft. Smith, Arkansas to Durant, OK.

Another upper level system will be brushing the eastern third of the state Sunday night into Monday bringing a chance for some very light precipitation into the eastern third of the state. This may be more of a drizzle or mist for a few hours Monday morning, but the chance will remain near and east of the Tulsa metro. Temperatures would be below freezing for the morning hours and even light amounts may have an impact on morning travelers across eastern sections of the state. This chance, however, remains low. The southern stream wave that impacted southeastern OK Sunday will also phase with this northern system and help to produce more precipitation just east of the state Monday.

A third system nears the state from the west Tuesday night into Wednesday. The thermal profile would support snow and both EURO and GFS continue to offer some probabilities for portions of the state during this period. The amounts would be low. The EURO had a bowling ball of energy across the state about 2 runs ago, but the run to run consistency is not present, and a much weak system appears in the data today. The GFS has been slow to latch on to this system (no big surprise here) but now has shown some run to run consistency in the ensembles for the wave and some precipitation. But this morning the GFS keeps the precip west of the region while the EURO continues to offer some precip Wednesday morning. All of this to say: stay tuned.

The pattern supporting the chilly air will continue for at least the next 8 to 10 days.

Thanks for reading the Thursday morning weather discussion and blog.

Have a super great day!

Alan Crone

KOTV