Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 455 AM EDT Tue Mar 11 2014 Valid 12Z Tue Mar 11 2014 - 12Z Thu Mar 13 2014 ...Developing winter storm will impact much of the Northeast on Wednesday... ...Showers and thunderstorms will be possible along the central Gulf Coast and Southeast... A wide axis of precipitation will continue to develop to the north of a cold front sinking south and east through the Central Plains...Midwest...and Ohio Valley on Tuesday. Falling temperatures behind the boundary will allow for snow within the northern edge of the precipitation shield...resulting in a swath of accumulations stretching from Iowa to the Lower Great Lakes. On Wednesday...a surface low along the front will quickly deepen while it tracks from Ohio Valley to the New England Coast...and the brunt of the action will shift focus to the eastern third of the Nation. Increasing amounts of moisture getting pulled out of the Gulf and Atlantic will help set up a wide zone of moderate to heavy snows to the northwest of the developing surface low. Widespread accumulations are expected from the Lower Great Lakes into the Northeast...with snowfall totals possibly approaching or exceeding a foot across interior New England. Also...warmer Atlantic air moving in aloft should allow for a narrow axis of freezing rain closer to the coast. Elsewhere across the Nation...showers and thunderstorms will continue to develop beneath a piece of southern stream energy crossing the Central Gulf Coast states and then lifting northeastward through the Southeast. Strong surface high pressure sprawling out over the Rockies will keep locations west of the Continental Divide precipitation free through the middle of the work wee. Gerhardt Graphics available at www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_wbg.php