Elk City, OK 73644 Weather

Key Messages

Updated at 539 PM CDT Fri Oct 23 2026

- Above normal temperatures and dry conditions through the weekend.

- Higher rain chances return to western areas early next week

- Rain chances increase again towards the end of next week.

Near Term

(Rest of today and tonight) Issued at 104 PM CDT Fri Oct 23 2026

Long wave ridging continues across Oklahoma and Texas today, with a pronounced long wave trough through California and the desert southwest. The daily weather pattern in the inter mountain west looks quite similar to a typical Oklahoma day in April. This feature has helped bring severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall well to the west of our forecast area.

For us, only some high cirrus clouds riding the ridge, leaving most of us with dirty sunshine and warm temperatures. Surface features include a lee trough which stretches from a surface low in Montana all the way to eastern New Mexico. This surface trough relaxes a bit in the south plains, keeping our winds southerly and relatively light.

Without the high cloud cover, our temperatures may have made a run to be even higher than what the latest observations are showing. Even with the high clouds, most surface observations are showing temperatures in the mid 70s, shooting for highs in the lower 80s. Tonight, lows will only drop into the upper 50s, with some areas limited to near 60 in proximity to the high cloud cover.

Fox

Short Term

(Saturday through Sunday night) Issued at 104 PM CDT Fri Oct 23 2026

Through Sunday, temperatures will remain above normal for most of the area, and well above normal in our Texas Counties. The normal highs for this time of year are in the lower 70s, so temperatures near 80 degrees are nearly 10 degrees above normal.

Short range numerical modeling is in surprising agreement in the (lack of) movement of the long wave trough. Convective allowing models and synoptic scale models agree that the trough will make incremental eastward progress through Saturday, keeping rain and thunderstorm chances quite low (< 10%) in western Oklahoma. Heavy rainfall will be possible in the Texas panhandle, but all we should see is an increase in high cloud cover, and slightly "lower" temperatures...which will still be above normal.

Late Sunday, thunderstorm chances creep upward in far western Oklahoma, topping out around 40-60% in areas west of US 81 and north of I-40. After midnight on Sunday / early Monday morning, rain and thunderstorm chances remain low (30-50%), but very slowly creep eastward to near the I-35 corridor.

Fox

Long Term

(Monday through next Thursday) Issued at 104 PM CDT Fri Oct 23 2026

While the trough and rain chances move east, this should be a nice pattern. However, once the trough gets near central Oklahoma, the long fetch of subtropical moisture disappear faster than kids being told to clean up. More scientifically, the moisture plume evident on water vapor imagery today...finally dries up. While we may still see scattered rainfall or thunderstorms Monday or Tuesday, the chances decrease to 10-30% as the main trough approaches overhead. Latest ensemble blends put the rainfall amounts in our forecast area between 0 and about 1/2 inch. Rainfall would be more welcome, most of us won't see much more than a few showers.

Later in the week, the range of possibilities widens further. Long range forecasting is hard enough, but check out these ranges for OKC:

Thursday morning ensemble forecast guidance Low temp: between 48 and 61 F High temp: between 66 and 76 F PoP: between 1% and 46% Precip: between 0.00 and 0.89"

and that is just Thursday morning. The same wide ranges will continue into the Halloween weekend, although it is just out of this official forecast period. However, there is a potential for another heavy rain event just after this forecast range.

But...what is known now is there is strong (more than 60% of members) are showing increasing rain chances beginning on Thursday, as another upper level trough approaches, along with another fetch of subtropical jet. While the timing is uncertain, with the evidence in the wide range of ensemble data, it does appear that a pattern change to a wet pattern is likely by the end of next weekend. However, it is too early to make final decisions based on all of this, especially with the uncertainty of timing.