Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 204 PM EST Sat Dec 07 2013 Valid 00Z Sun Dec 08 2013 - 00Z Tue Dec 10 2013 ...Arctic cold entrenched from the northern and central Rockies eastward across the northern Plains and upper Midwest... ...Winter weather expected from portions of the Mid-South across the Mid-Atlantic into New England from tonight into Tuesday... ...Cold Santa Ana winds for southern California Sunday night into Tuesday... The main attraction is period is a storm system congealing across the Southeast and East over the next couple days spurred by an upper level disturbance streaking from the Intermountain West across the Midwest and Great Lakes. The system will be packing Pacific moisture aloft and tap Gulf of Mexico moisture at the low levels, saturating the atmosphere across southern and eastern portions of the lower 48. The northern fringe of the precipitation shield with a weak surface low moving from the Gulf coast across the East should be cold enough for a narrow stripe of light to moderate snows fall from West Virginia Sunday morning before moving across portions of the Mid-Atlantic States into New York State by Monday morning. A northeast-southwest oriented upper-level trough from central Canada into the Southwest then brings warm air over a shallow arctic airmass at the surface, supporting an extensive area of freezing rain and sleet across the lower Mississippi valley and Tennessee tonight east-northeast into the Carolinas/Ohio Valley/Mid-Atlantic states on Sunday, and onwards into southern New England Monday morning in the wake of the earlier snow fall. Otherwise, the northern and central Rockies as well as much of the northern Plains and upper Midwest should remain quite cold, with high temperatures struggling to get to 10F on Sunday and 20F Monday, though that will be across the northern High Plains in the warm sector of an Alberta Clipper approaching the United States/Canadian border Monday morning. As a strong arctic high settles into the Great Basin in the wake of energy aloft moving across the Sierra Nevada, Santa Ana winds are poised to blow across southern California Sunday night into Monday and Tuesday. However, due to the coldness of the system at the surface and loft, temperatures should remain below average -- atypical of the Santa Ana. Roth Graphics available at www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_wbg.php