Here Comes the Warmth!

We've had to deal with winter long enough, haven't we?!  The arrival of February brought an abrupt change in the weather pattern, with several rounds of wintry weather that impacted Oklahoma as well as bitterly cold temperatures.  To describe roughly the first half of this month, we could use terms such as cold, dreary, snowy, and icy, just to name a few.  Well, that is all going to change in the coming days.  The return of a ridge of high pressure to the central and western states will bring significantly warmer temperatures over at least the next week to Oklahoma.  And we are not talking about temperatures that are near normal.  We are talking about temperatures running at least 10 degrees above normal in the 60s and even 70s!  So beware: spring fever may settle in!

Forecast
The warming trend will start as early as Wednesday.  Some parts of the state have seen the return of the sun this afternoon, allowing high temperatures to rise to the mid-to-upper-30s, the warmest they have been so far this month!  Others are still on the cold side with cloudy skies.  If cloudy skies and/or cold temperatures are still plaguing your area, do not worry.  The sun will appear tomorrow along with the warming trend.  The Mesonet map to the right shows temperatures as they were recorded at 5:00 PM this afternoon.  Notice how snowfall can have an impact on the temperatures.  The areas of northern Oklahoma only reporting temperatures in the upper-teens saw as much as 6 inches of snow last night!

Now on to the forecast.  Tonight will still be a chilly night across the state with some patchy freezing fog developing across central and western Oklahoma.  Lows will drop down to the mid-to-upper-teens across most of the state, the exception being southern Oklahoma, where lows are forecast to only drop to the low-20s.  For Wednesday, patchy freezing fog is possible early in the morning but will lift by mid-morning.  By the afternoon, expect generally sunny skies across the entire state.  The panhandle will enjoy the warmest highs in the low-50s.  The rest of the state should see highs in the upper-30s to mid-40s.  Ironically, though these highs will be at least 10 degrees warmer than highs we have experienced thus far this month, they will still be near 10 degrees below normal!  Note that as we mentioned above, snow cover can have an impact on temperatures.  Therefore, the coldest highs will occur in areas with at least a couple of inches of snow currently on the ground.

For Wednesday night, a slight increase in cloud cover will yield partly cloudy skies for the overnight hours.  Lows in the mid-to-upper-20s across the state can be expected.  On Thursday, skies will be mostly sunny and highs will continue to rise and be near or over 10 degrees warmer than Wednesday's highs.  Expect highs to soar to the low-to-mid-60s in the panhandle and be in the mid-to-upper-50s elsewhere, perhaps the extreme low-60s in far south central Oklahoma.

For Thursday night, expect partly cloudy skies again with lows in the low-to-mid-30s.  For Friday, skies will be sunny with a temperature gradient setting up across the state.  For most of the state, high temperatures nearly the same as on Thursday.  The exceptions include the panhandle, in which the high will be nearly 10 degrees cooler on Friday than on Thursday and southern Oklahoma, in which the high will be a few degrees warmer on Friday than on Thursday.  So expect highs in the mid-to-upper-50s across the panhandle, northern, and central Oklahoma, with highs in the low-to-mid-60s across southern Oklahoma.

It is the weekend in which we will see unusually warm highs across Oklahoma that may cause spring fever.  In northeast Oklahoma, highs will be in the upper-50s to low-60s on Saturday and the low-to-mid-60s by Sunday.  For the rest of the state, highs will be well into the 60s - in fact, the mid-to-upper-60s on both Saturday and Sunday.  Do not be surprised to see some 70s pop up in southwestern  or south central Oklahoma, either.

The warm temperatures are expected to hang around even into next week, though not rising any more.  For northern and central Oklahoma, expect a slight drop in highs back to the upper-50s and low-60s on Monday and Tuesday.  Southern Oklahoma will also see highs return to the lower-60s by Tuesday.  While this is a temperature drop, such temperatures are still 5 to 10 degrees above normal!

Just How Cold?
We talked about how cold the beginning of this month was.  But just how cold was it?  Below, we have listed a table, courtesy of the National Weather Service, with the high and low temperatures, the average temperature, and its departure from normal for the first 10 days of the month for Guymon, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa.  It is pretty clear to see that the start of this month has not just been cold but very cold at various places across the state.  In addition, we have provided links to snowfall totals from each weather system provided by the National Weather Service in Norman.

FEBRUARY TEMPERATURES (°F)

STATION: GUYMON
======================

DAY MAX MIN AVG DEP

 1  34  18  26 -11

 2  34  16  25 -12

 3  45  18  32  -5

 4  30   9  20 -17

 5   9   2   6 -31

 6  11   3   7 -30

 7  29   9  19 -18

 8  54  13  34  -3

 9  29  19  24 -14

10  20  15  18 -20

======================

[TEMPERATURE DATA]

AVERAGE MONTHLY: 20.9

DPTR FM NORMAL: -16.4

STATION: OKLAHOMA CITY
======================

DAY MAX MIN AVG DEP

 1  39  28  34  -7

 2  32  21  27 -14

 3  34  19  27 -14

 4  34  25  30 -11

 5  25  10  18 -23

 6  18   9  14 -28

 7  28  16  22 -20

 8  34  25  30 -12

 9  34  27  31 -11

10  29  20  25 -17

======================

[TEMPERATURE DATA]

AVERAGE MONTHLY: 25.4

DPTR FM NORMAL: -16.1

STATION: TULSA

======================

DAY MAX MIN AVG DEP

 1  32  28  30  -9

 2  29  14  22 -17

 3  39   8  24 -15

 4  35  26  31  -9

 5  26  10  18 -22

 6  20   8  14 -26

 7  27  14  21 -19

 8  32  25  29 -11

 9  33  24  29 -12

10  28  19  24 -17

======================

[TEMPERATURE DATA]

AVERAGE MONTHLY: 23.9

DPTR FM NORMAL: -16.1

SNOWFALL TOTALS
February 2
February 4
February 6
February 7
February 10-11
February 11 (coming soon)

Elsewhere Across the Nation

Southeastern United States Radar
Courtesy of Intellicast

Winter may be wrapping up for those of us who live in the southern Plains, but it is just getting started across the southeast.  A major winter storm which could reach "historic" proportions is expected to cause major disruptions from Louisiana to Georgia, then up the East Coast from South Carolina to Maine by the end of the week.  Both heavy snow, which could total up to a foot across the mid-Atlantic states, and icing up to an inch across the southern states, may cause some cities to shut down and will have a tremendous impact on travel.  An area expected to be hard-hit is Atlanta, Georgia, which endured some pain from the winter storm which impacted the area just a couple of weeks ago.  If you have family or friends that live in these regions, please make sure they have made their final preparations.  It would also be wise to avoid travel to these regions in the coming days if at all possible.

AC

Sources: NWS, Mesonet, HOOT, Intellicast, Google Images (photo)