Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 400 AM EDT Wed Mar 26 2025 Valid 12Z Wed Mar 26 2025 - 12Z Fri Mar 28 2025 ...Heavy rain and flash flooding potential emerging across southern Texas later today and continuing into Thursday... ...Thunderstorms could become severe across the Pacific Northwest tonight, and across southern Texas on Friday... ...Periods of light snow expected from the Great Lakes to the Northeast as record warmth spreads from the western U.S. into the central U.S.... A persistent broad upper-level trough will continue to deliver colder than normal temperatures and periods of light snow from the Great Lakes into the interior Northeast for the next couple of days. On the opposite side of the country however, a ridge of high pressure that has allowed record high temperatures of above 100 degrees at the hottest locations in the Desert Southwest on Tuesday will begin to shift east toward the central U.S. High temperatures reaching into the 70s will challenge or break daily records across the Pacific Northwest and into the northern Great Basin this afternoon. By Thursday afternoon, record warmth will shift east toward the central Plains as a low pressure system is forecast to develop over the northern High Plains. Meanwhile, in between the trough in the Northeast and the ridge in the West, a heavy rain event is forecast to emerge later today across southern Texas with the approach of a subtropical jet stream across Mexico ahead of an upper-level trough. The vigorous lifting mechanism over returning Gulf moisture associated with this system could deliver rainfall amounts in excess of 5 inches across much of southern Texas with local amounts exceeding 10 inches possible. A moderate risk of flash flooding is expected to shift from west to east slowly across southern Texas through the next couple of days. A rather large and intense cyclone is coming into picture over the eastern Pacific. Rain well ahead of this system is forecast to reach the West Coast by this evening along coastal Pacific Northwest and northern California. By Thursday, winds are expected to increase as the rain becomes heavier in these areas. Thursday evening should see the eastern core of the big cyclone edging into the Pacific Northwest where a few inches of heavy rain can be expected especially closer to the coast in northwestern California into southwestern Oregon. Elsewhere, thunderstorms could linger this morning across the south-central Plains ahead of a low pressure wave. Scattered showers and storms will then gather farther north across Missouri and vicinity on Thursday before spreading northeast and expanding into the Midwest by Friday morning ahead of a lifting warm front. Colder and windier conditions with an increasing chance of mixed rain and wintry precipitation will emerge across the northern Plains as an intensifying and elongated low pressure system passes just to the south Thursday night into Friday morning. Kong Graphics available at https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_ndfd.php