Are you ready for record breaking heat this week???
Tuesday will be our hottest day, followed closely by Wednesday. The rest of the week will certainly be hot, but no more records. Speaking of, the record on Tuesday and Wednesday for OKC is 109 degrees set back in 1936/2018 respectively. Lawton is 114/111 degrees. Tulsa is 113/109 degrees. So many areas of the state will be close to their records, some will tie or exceed.
Speaking of the heat, just another reminder to take it easy in these extremes.
Heat Safety
The lack of rain over the past 30 days has expanded the drought. A flash drought (which is a rapid onset or intensification brought on by abnormally high temperatures) will also occur this week. Some areas of the state are at their driest on record over this period of time going back to the 20s.
Lack of daily significant rainfall.
The latest drought conditions.
30 day ranking of dry weather.
So speaking of rain, are we going to see any? First let’s take a look at the Jetstream. Tap the animation to see the areas of colors rotate around the upper high. Those can sometimes produce isolated to widely scatters showers and storms. That’s really all we have to hope for along with the weak front that moved in Sunday afternoon and another weak cold front that is expected on Wednesday. The rain signals aren’t the best in the ensemble total through the week, but at least there is a signal. This is a smoothed average, as you know summer-time storms can dump quite a bit of rainfall over a small area, since they don’t move much. Not to mention the damaging wind in the form of microbursts!
Jetstream pattern Monday.
Jetstream pattern Sunday.
Jetstream animation with upper disturbances.
Ensemble mean signal of total rainfall for the week.
Back to the heat. The good news is the extreme heat is transient. Watch the animation below a few times to see how the peak of the 850mb temperatures (very dark red) moves through Tuesday and Wednesday, but then cools down and later shifts what heat is left across the north by Sunday. The most intense heat on Tuesday will be focused across the SW corner of the state. The front on Wednesday will help alleviate the heat across the northern half of the state.
850mb Temperature Animation.
High Temperatures Tuesday.
High Temperatures Wednesday.
The temperature trend in OKC peaks early then settles down. No significant relief is on the way, so expect temperatures to hover around 100 degrees through the end of the month. -AT
OKC Temperature Trend
