Cooler weather is ahead … kinda

With a cold front forecast to hit Sequoyah County by Monday, is it time to review the highway signs that caution “bridge ices before road”?

Probably not. Because, although local weather forecasters say a cold front is due in northeast Oklahoma and north- west Arkansas beginning Sunday night, nobody’s digging out their coats from storage.

Because, especially in August, weather and cold fronts are relative terms.

After too many days near and over 100 degrees for much of the past month due to a stagnant heat dome over the central U.S., even a dip into the 80s is a welcome respite.

But unlike Oklahoma winters when a cold front means an immediate difference, changes in the summer occur slowly.

“We really don’t get that cooler air until Sunday night into Monday. So it’s a gradual process,” KFSM-TV Channel 5 chief meteorologist Matt Standridge said this week. “The front’s going to be taking its sweet time pushing across the [Great] Plains, kinda doing the sightseeing tour down I-49.”

But as that heat dome weakens, it’s going to allow a cold front from the northern Pacific Ocean to move along the U.S.-Canadian border before it dives south across the Dakotas headed right for Sequoyah County, a weather event Standridge says “solves all our problems.”

Until that happens, however, the region will continue to flirt with the century mark, and excessive heat warnings will continue with heat indices approaching 115 degrees.

“It’s still going to be hot Saturday,” he warns. “Sunday you start to notice extra clouds and maybe some scattered showers and storms. Sunday we are a little bit cooler, but we’ll do even better Monday into Tuesday. The real cool air doesn’t come until Monday when we drop to the 80s, so we’re excited about that.

“We’ll have lots of 80s next week. We’ll have at least three or four days where we’ll be enjoying some of the cooler weather and less humid weather. This front should keep us cooler for the rest of August,” Standridge says. “Can’t wait for it. Monday can’t come fast enough. But until then, it’s still hot.”

For the Arkansas River Valley area, high temperatures are forecast for high 80s to low 90s for much of the week, before things start to heat up again by Labor Day weekend.

According to the Oklahoma Mesonet, during the first 24 days of August, the daily high temperature has been below 90 only six times. Meanwhile, the thermometer topped out at 100 degrees or more six times, the hottest being 103 on Aug. 3-4. Data from the National Weather Service shows that the Fort Smith region reached 100 degrees or more on seven occasions in August, with highs of 107 on Aug. 3 and Aug. 20, followed by a 106 reading and two days of 105 degrees.

The coolest high temperature for July and August was 78 on July 6 and 82 on July 21, according to the Oklahoma Mesonet, and it was a refreshing — and unseasonable — 83 as recently as Aug. 15.