Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 355 PM EDT Thu Mar 26 2020 Valid 00Z Fri Mar 27 2020 - 00Z Sun Mar 29 2020 ...Critical fire weather threat exists through Saturday across the Southern/Central High Plains and Southern Rockies... ...Heavy rainfall and a strong to severe thunderstorm threat emerges by Friday across the Southern/Central Plains and eastward through the Ohio Valley... ...Temperatures will be as much as 15 to 25 degrees above average across large sections of the South... A deep upper-level trough advancing slowly through the Western U.S. will keep conditions unsettled across portions of the Great Basin through Friday and the Rockies going through Saturday. Numerous showers with low elevation rains and higher elevation snows are expected, and especially over the central Rockies by Saturday where heavy accumulating snowfall is expected. This will be facilitated by a deepening area of low pressure over the central High Plains which will transport plenty of moisture westward back into Colorado high country and adjacent areas of southeast Wyoming. Going into the weekend, as much as 6 to 12 inches of snow will be possible for these areas. Elsewhere, there will be a new upper-level trough impacting the Pacific Northwest going into the weekend which will bring some locally heavy rain for the coastal ranges and snowfall for the Cascades. In fact, portions of the Washington and Oregon Cascades may see as much as 1 to 2 feet of new snowfall going through Saturday. The aforementioned area of deepening low pressure over the High Plains will drive a strong quasi-stationary front that will tend to be draped from the lower Missouri Valley eastward through the Ohio Valley and the Mid-Atlantic region. Low pressure over western Kansas on Friday will deepen on its way across the Midwest through Saturday and will allow a portion of this front to surge north as a warm front as a cold front finally ejects east out of the Rockies and across the central and southern Plains. Both of these fronts will become a focus for heavy showers and thunderstorms in time, and there will be a threat of severe weather from portions of the lower and middle Mississippi Valley east into the Ohio Valley as the low center ejects out of the Plains Friday and Saturday. Meanwhile, a critical fire weather threat exists across the central and southern High Plains and also the southern Rockies through Saturday as locally strong winds, very warm temperatures, and low relative humidities are expected across these areas. In fact, temperatures across the southern U.S. to the south of the front draped from the Plains to the Mid-Atlantic will see well above average temperatures, with readings as much as 15 to 25 degrees above normal. Many of these areas can expect high temperatures in the 80s to near 90 degrees ahead of the approaching cold front. Orrison Graphics available at www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_ndfd.php