Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 258 PM EST Wed Dec 13 2017 Valid 00Z Thu Dec 14 2017 - 00Z Sat Dec 16 2017 ...Lingering fire weather concerns for Southern California... ...Cold to linger across the Northeast through the rest of the week... High pressure over portions of the West will help maintain warm and dry conditions; which will prolong critical wildfire conditions for portions of southern California. Poor air quality will persist across much of the Pacific Northwest in this pattern as well. Rain, an mountain snow, will begin to move inland Thursday afternoon as an upper-level trough and associated surface front approaches the coast... spreading to the Northern Rockies by Friday. Cold, breezy conditions were observed for most of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region today in the wake of the system moving out into the Atlantic Ocean. A clipper system passing through the Great Lakes region today will bring areal averages of 3 to 6 inches of snow from lower Michigan to Pennsylvania. A vast major of this region has Winter Storm Warnings and Winter Weather Advisories in effect. Lake effect snow showers will continue downwind of the Great Lake through Friday but there will be enough shifting of the wind direction to prevent much in the way of heavy accumulations. A weak system will push south through the Plains bringing light snow showers(or a mix of rain and snow)... while another cold front sags southward into the Southern Plains, Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico over the next few days. South Texas could see a decent rainfall Friday into Saturday as the cold front slows its pace. Campbell Graphics available at www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_ndfd.php