Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 400 PM EDT Thu Apr 04 2019 Valid 00Z Fri Apr 05 2019 - 00Z Sun Apr 07 2019 ...Heavy rain and severe weather expected through tonight for Louisiana... ...Rain moving across the eastern U.S. Friday with wintry weather for northern New England Friday night... ...More unsettled weather moving across the western U.S. into the weekend... ...Strong thunderstorms forecast to develop over Texas Friday night... A wave of a low pressure supported by an upper-level trough will promote heavy rain along with strong to severe thunderstorms through tonight over Louisiana, especially for locations near the Gulf coast. Moisture associated with this system will combine with another upper-level system spread rain eastward across the Ohio Valley tonight, and moving into much of the East Coast on Friday. In addition, mixed rain and snow will also be found farther north across the upper Midwest and the Great Lakes tonight, moving across northern New England on Friday. The precipitation should begin to gradually move off the East Coast on Saturday as a low pressure center is forecast to develop just of the North Carolina coast. This low should not have significant impacts to the weather othern than drawing in drier air from the northwest Saturday night. A couple of upper-level troughs will move into the western U.S. over the next couple of days, along with associated fronts at the surface. This will lead to increasing precipitation along the West Coast on Thursday and the Intermountain West and Rockies by Friday. Lower elevation rain and higher elevation snow is expected, and the highest snowfall totals are forecast in the Sierra Nevada and the Bitterroot Range in Idaho, with 6 to 10 inches of snow possible there. As upper-level energy pushes into the Southwest late Friday, another round of thunderstorms is forecast for the Southern Plains on Friday and into Saturday, with severe storms possible. Scattered thunderstorms should continue in the Southeast through the next couple of days as a front lingers there. In drier air to the west, an Elevated risk of fire weather is in place for much of New Mexico and far western parts of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles on Friday. Also regarding fire weather, parts of the Northeast could once again see conditions favorable for the spread of fires on Thursday. Temperature-wise, the central U.S. will be increasingly warm on Thursday and especially into Friday, when high temperatures are forecast around 10 to 20 degrees above average. California will be a bit cooler than average with weather systems coming through the West, and the Northeast is expecting colder than average high temperatures as well. Overnight lows will be above average across basically the entire CONUS by Saturday morning, after cooler than average lows are expected in the Northeast on Friday. Kong/Tate Graphics available at www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_ndfd.php