After this morning, another round of showers and storms closer to this evening and tonight | 5/18 AM
LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) -
Good morning! The rain that is moving (depending on when you’re reading this) and has moved across northern Southwest Oklahoma this morning will not be the only rain we will see today. For some who’s last day of school is today, you might be able to get home before the next round of showers and storms fires up in the late afternoon, but if you want to play it safe in case there are some early afternoon sprinkles, have some light rain gear handy. Temperatures today under mostly cloudy skies will get pretty warm due to pre-frontal warming and southeast winds at 5-15 mph, rising into the low/mid 80s in Southwest Oklahoma and mid/upper 80s in North Texas.
Models are still split on the initial timing and location of the showers and storms later today. Some have them firing up in North Texas around 4 PM, while other have them instead firing up in the Texas Panhandle and moving into our far western counties around 8 PM. Make sure to keep up to date with the ongoing weather and check radar for location of any pop-up scattered storms this evening. Two consistent details are evident across nearly all models: 1) the majority of the showers and storms will be this evening and tonight regardless of start time, and 2) the storms will start out in the southwest and move northeast overnight. Some that means us here in Southwest Oklahoma can expect the scattered showers & thunderstorms to be most prominent between 10 PM tonight until just before sunrise tomorrow.
Storm threats will be pretty marginal this evening but will still include damaging winds up to 60-70 mph and large hail up to the size of golf balls. The tornado threat remains very low with weak wind shear aloft. Flooding will be a concern for northern counties as some could see up to 1-2 inches of heavy rainfall from storms over the next 24 hours, combined with the already-saturated ground from the rain we received this past weekend.
Like today, Friday will see a lull in the middle of the day with a couple models even suggesting that we’ll be done with rain entirely after tomorrow morning. Highs will top out in the low/mid 80s with winds out of the northeast at 10-15 mph. A cold front will sweep through the Southern Plains, including Texoma, during the second half of the day. Ahead of this front, some isolated-to-scattered showers and storms will fire up along with another marginal risk of strong-to-severe weather. Most of us here in Southwest Oklahoma look to miss out on the bulk (or all) of this afternoon rain tomorrow as a majority of it will impact south and east counties in Texoma, increasing in coverage as they advance towards Eastern Oklahoma and the DFW Metroplex later in the day.
Following the cold front, we’ll get to experience a quiet and dry weekend with partly cloudy skies on both days. Saturday and Sunday will witness high temperatures only top out in the mid/upper 70s, which is below average at this time in May. Mostly cloudy skies will return early next week along with isolated showers and storms on Monday, increasing to be more scattered heading into the middle of next week (but models become a little fuzzy looking this far out). Temperatures will gradually rise back into the low 80s by the end of the 7-day forecast.
Copyright 2023 KSWO. All rights reserved.
