Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 300 PM EST Sun Jan 05 2025 Valid 00Z Mon Jan 06 2025 - 00Z Wed Jan 08 2025 ...Large winter storm to track east from the Central Plains/Midwest to the East Coast through Monday with heavy snow, gusty winds and damaging ice accumulations... ...Severe thunderstorms will continue to affect the Lower Mississippi Valley through late this evening but the threat is expected to lower and shift east for Monday... ...A mix of rain and higher elevation snow will impact parts of the western U.S. over the next 48 hours with temperatures trending colder on Tuesday... A major winter storm will move eastward from the Central Plains into the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic region tonight, bringing areas of snow, sleet, freezing rain and gusty winds along its path. Gusty winds, locally exceeding 40 mph, will create blizzard conditions from Kansas into northwestern Missouri through this evening, with conditions improving from west to east overnight tonight. Areas of heavy snow will spread eastward through the Ohio Valley and central Appalachians tonight, reaching the northern Mid-Atlantic by Monday morning. While winds will be weaker across the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic region, occasional gusts up to 20-25 mph will still be possible which will result in reduced visibilities from snowfall or snow on the ground. Total snowfall accumulations of 6 to 12 inches are expected from southern Ohio to the D.C. metropolitan area. South of the snow will be a mixture of sleet and freezing rain with damaging ice accumulations which are expected to exceed 0.25 inches for northern Kentucky and portions of southern West Virginia. Lighter, but still hazardous ice accumulations generally between 0.10 and 0.25 inches are expected along and east of the Blue Ridge Mountains into western North Carolina and central/southern Virginia. On the warm side of the storm system, severe thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes and damaging straight line winds will move east from Arkansas and Louisiana into Mississippi and Alabama this evening. The threat for severe thunderstorms is expected to wane overnight but increase again for portions of southern Georgia and northern Florida on Monday, though the threat is expected to be reduced compared to the Lower Mississippi Valley. The eastern storm system will exit quickly into the western Atlantic Monday night with lingering snow showers downwind of the Great Lakes and into the favored upslope regions of the central/northern Appalachians. Much colder air will filter into the central and eastern U.S. in the wake of the eastern storm system resulting in high temperature departures of roughly 10 to 20 degrees below average for large portions of the Great Plains to the East Coast on Monday and Tuesday. Across the western U.S., a pair of relatively weak disturbances aloft will bring a mixture of lower elevation rain and mountain snow from the Pacific Northwest to the northern and central Rockies. Rain/snow totals are expected to remain fairly light for the West and temperatures will be 5 to 15 degrees above average west of the Continental Divide on Monday. Colder air filtering in from the north will cool temperatures closer to average on Tuesday for much of the western third of the nation. Otto Graphics available at https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_ndfd.php