Breezy southerly winds bring warming trend for start of Spring season | 3/20 AM

LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) -

Good morning! For the first day of (astronomical) spring, we are waking up to temperatures that are more reminiscent of winter across portions of Southwest Oklahoma. Due to increasing winds out of the south today, it will feel like early spring this afternoon with temperatures in the upper 50s and low 60s. The winds will be the main story on this Monday, topping out of the south at 15-25 mph with wind gusts up to 30 mph. Skies today will be a mix of sun and clouds, alternating between both until the sun goes down. There will be a couple light sporadic showers throughout the day, but expect most of our viewing area to stay dry.

Mostly cloudy skies expected overnight as rain coverage will increase heading into early tomorrow morning. After midnight, some isolated-to-scattered showers will pop-up across Southwest Oklahoma and North Texas, clearing out shortly after sunrise on Tuesday. Winds will stay breezy out of the south at 15-25 mph. Morning lows will fall down to the mid/upper 40s and low 50s.

The impact of the southerly winds will be felt tomorrow as temperatures in the mid/upper 70s will be on tap for Tuesday afternoon. Winds will still breeze up to 15-25 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. Mostly cloudy skies to start out the morning hours will transition to allow for more sunshine in the afternoon.

Mostly/partly cloudy skies on Wednesday as winds will continue out of the south at 10-20 mph. Temperatures will reach the low 80s in the afternoon, though this is expected to be the last day of the warming trend as a cold front is expected the following day. An emerging dry-line will funnel dry air in across our western & northern counties, causing elevated-to-near critical fire weather conditions to develop Wednesday afternoon.

The cold front will move through the Southern Plains on Thursday ahead of an upper-level trough just to our west. This disturbance combined with increased moisture will set us up to see some scattered showers and storms across Texoma. Precipitation timing looks to begin around midday and will last for a decent amount of time, not expected to dissipate away completely until early Friday morning. There will be ingredients in place to see some strong-to-severe weather, with all severe hazards being possible. We still need to iron out the kinks, but we can assume based on model trends that the afternoon and evening will be the best timing for these stronger storms, with severe coverage looking to be along and east of HW-183.

Following the last of the rain, we are forecasting much more enjoyable spring-like conditions to arrive on Friday and last through this weekend. Temperatures heading into early next week will be around average in the upper 60s and low 70s with mostly sunny skies.

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