Plaincast
What the forecast actually says — NWS Area Forecast Discussions, decoded into plain English.
Revised in 2 passages since the 12:20 AM discussion. See every revision.
Cooler and sunny today; low chance for a freeze in northern Oklahoma Saturday morning.
Widespread rain event expected from Saturday to Sunday, with most areas seeing at least 1/4 inch of rain and a maximum swath of around 1 inch of rain expected.
Chilly on Sunday; slow warm-up thereafter.
(Through Friday) Issued at 1215 AM CST Fri Nov 13 2026
Near-term forecast impacts: Cooler this morning, but another beautiful day otherwise.
Regional surface observations tonight show a much cooler airmass located across the mid-Mississippi Valley beneath a strong belt of northerly 500 mb flow. Pressure rises in the vicinity of Lake Winnipeg are driving that airmass southward through Iowa and Missouri, and northeast surface winds here will bring the airmass in the form of a backdoor cold front. It's worth noting that the trend in short-range guidance has been for the airmass to not be quite as cold as previously anticipated; still, the difference will be noticeable compared to the recent warm weather.
The impact of this will be to create a gradient in temperatures from southwest to northeast once the sun comes up. In north central Oklahoma, continued cold advection (even with winds remaining pretty light) will keep highs in the low-to-mid 50s. In western north Texas, surface winds will be closer to due easterly, and highs should get well into the 60s. Mostly sunny skies continue through the morning, with high clouds arriving late.
(Friday night through Sunday night) Issued at 1215 AM CST Fri Nov 13 2026
Short-term forecast impacts: Cool conditions Saturday morning with frost/freeze still possible in northern Oklahoma. Cold rain begins Saturday and peaks Saturday night into early Sunday.
Pressure rises will continue overnight and into Saturday morning. Again, the trend is toward a weaker cold airmass, and that is reflected in the high-res rapid-refresh model trends at 12Z Saturday: previously, it forecasted MSLP as high as 1026 mb reaching I-35 in northern/central Oklahoma. Now, it forecasts about 1022 mb at the same location/time. Therefore, the concern for frost/freeze conditions on Saturday morning is significantly lower. For example, the 18Z REFS shows about a 20% chance of freeze conditions in Stillwater and 0% in OKC, while 18 hours earlier those values were 85% and 50%, respectively.
Meanwhile, a jet streak will come ashore in California late this evening and translate rapidly into Texas by late Saturday evening.In advance of the jet streak, 850-700 mb layer winds will shift to southerly during the day on Saturday. Initial warm advection showers are expected in western Oklahoma and western north Texas, with the eastward extent confined by dry boundary layers. With time, dynamic/evaporative cooling will moisten boundary layers across the entire area so that precipitation begins by Saturday afternoon/evening.
By Saturday night, the jet streak will evolve into a cutoff low across the southern Plains. Unlike many cutoff lows we see around here, the dynamism of the pattern will keep this one quite progressive, so the precipitation shield associated with it won't necessarily be the longest-lived. Because of that, the maximum expected rainfall estimates on both the the European model and RRFS of about 1 inch seem reasonable. That swath of maximum precipitation totals should be a bit broader than cutoff lows we see in the convective season, particularly with guidance suggesting a weaker dry slot due to the west-northwest approach angle of the trough. Still, the swath of maximum expected rainfall is narrow enough that the specific track of the cutoff low will likely be the difference between some spots reaching to/over an inch of rain, and some remaining closer to 0.1-0.2 inch.
While highs on Saturday will be near or just a bit below normal (overnight cold advection and cloud cover battling daily warm advection above the boundary layer), the widespread presence of rain and downward mixing of the cold core of the low look to make Sunday one of the coldest daytimes we've had so far this fall. Highs will struggle to reach out of the mid-40s in most of Oklahoma, while western north Texas won't be much warmer.
(Monday through Thursday) Issued at 1215 AM CST Fri Nov 13 2026
Long-term forecast impacts: Drier forecast and a gradual warm-up throughout the week.
The trough zips out of the forecast area on Monday and is replaced by amplified shortwave ridging. Cloud cover will likely linger during much of the day on Monday and keep temperatures below normal. By Tuesday, the next large-scale trough across the West will begin influencing the surface pattern on the Plains by inducing lee troughing in the Dakotas/Wyoming/Montana. This will gradually cause winds to shift to southerly across the forecast area. However, the warmup that follows will likely be less-dramatic than we have seen again and again in 2026 because surface winds may not contain much of a westerly component, and because there will actually be cool air circulating even in the warm advection regime. Therefore, even by Wednesday highs will only be reaching around 60 in our area.
The warm advection regime becomes a little more pronounced by Thursday and into the end of the week, sending temperatures back above normal. Low-end precipitation chances creep back into the forecast on Thursday as well, but ensemble data have been pinpointing next weekend (in the Day 8 - Day 10 timeframe) as one of greater probability for impactful precipitation.
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Data from the National Weather Service. Translated by Claude. About · For developers & agents · Subscribe: RSS feed for this office · Source on GitHub