Thunderstorms possible, despite cool weather

TULSA — Common wisdom has it that it takes warm weather to spawn thunderstorms, but that’s only partially correct.

It takes warm air, but as FOX23 and KRMG Chief Meteorologist James Aydelott explains, that warm air doesn’t have to be on the surface, where we can feel it.

“Any time you get deep moisture and instability, you can get thunderstorms. Well, that doesn’t have to be surface-based, down here where it might be cold. You might have warmer, more unstable air just above the surface. That’s what could lead to some of those thunderstorms developing over us,” he said Monday.

And if strange weather conditions are possible, Oklahoma’s a likely place for them to develop at some point.

“It’s been several years ago,” he said, “but the Norman National Weather Service issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning with temperatures in the teens. And I think they ended up with half a foot of nickle-sized hail out of the storm.”

He doesn’t expect the system that moves into Green Country Tuesday to cause any major problems, but does say there will likely be some thunder and lightning.

“We will have some thunderstorms around,” he told KRMG. “Now, we will have a lot of limiting factors that’ll probably keep us from having any big severe weather threat out of this.”

James and the KRMG StormCenter will track the storms closely as they move through the area, just in case.

Expect the rain to move into the metro area early Tuesday afternoon.