What the forecast actually says — NWS Area Forecast Discussions, decoded into plain English.
Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for Tulsa, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.
Area Forecast Discussion · National Weather Service Tulsa (TSA) · issued Friday, September 11 at 7:44 AM CDT.
Messages
Rain/storm chances wind down this morning and low chances will persist in the terrain of NW AR this afternoon. Afternoon highs will be warmer than yesterday but substantially cooler than the intense heat that was observed earlier in the week. Unseasonably hot temperatures return over the weekend through next week.
Thunderstorm chances return Saturday however confidence is low in exact placement and coverage.
While much of the region has received rainfall over the past 24 hours, the ongoing drought conditions will require much more rainfall for improvement. Fire weather concerns will continue during periods of stronger winds.
Update
WV imagery this morning clearly delineates a shortwave trough aloft over the region moving slowly east. At the surface, the outflow/front that pushed through with the storms yesterday has stalled from central AR to extreme SE OK into NE TX.
The area of rain and storms will continue east this morning in tandem with the upper trough. The forecast was updated to wind down chance of rain through the morning. CAMs show low afternoon shower/storm potential in the terrain of NW AR and to the south of the forecast area close to the boundary, which is not expected to move much today. Since we stay on the north or cooler side of this boundary today, afternoon highs will not get as hot as what was observed earlier this week, though they will be warmer than yesterday with more sun.
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Tulsa discussion at /o/TSA/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.