Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 500 PM EDT Sat Aug 02 2014 Valid 00Z Sun Aug 03 2014 - 00Z Tue Aug 05 2014 ...Rain is expected along the East Coast near a stalled front... ...Showers and thunderstorms expected to move north from the Desert Southwest into the Great Basin and Sierra Nevada... Moisture ahead of a persistent upper-level trough over the eastern U.S. has overspread much of the East Coast, resulting in organized areas of heavier rains and embedded thunderstorms. The heaviest rains are expected to move northeastward along the coastal sections near a stalled front while more scattered activities will occur further inland. Weak low pressure centers are expected to form along the front, leading to periods of enhanced rainfall followed by lulls in the activities. By Monday, a better-defined low pressure center is forecast to form near the South Carolina coast while Tropical Storm Bertha is forecast to pass well off the East Coast. There could be another round of heavier rains in the coastal mid-Atlantic and the Carolinas before the entire system sweeps off the coast. The weather across much of the central U.S. west of the Appalachians will remain fine and slightly cooler than normal. A cold front will bring confined areas of showers and thunderstorms across the northern Plains, the Upper Midwest, followed by the Great Lakes during the next couple of days. Out west, an upper-level disturbance has formed in northwestern Mexico and has moved north into the Desert Southwest. This subtle feature has enhanced shower and thunderstorm activities in the Desert Southwest. Over the next couple of days, the disturbance is forecast to head slowly northward and spread showers and thunderstorms, some of which can be heavy, into the Great Basin, western part of New Mexico and Colorado, including the drought-stricken areas of eastern California such as the Sierra Nevada. Kong Graphics available at www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_wbg.php