Extended Forecast Discussion
NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD
253 AM EST Wed Jan 21 2026

Valid 12Z Sat Jan 24 2026 - 12Z Wed Jan 28 2026

...Significant winter storm expected from the Southern Plains to
the Mid-Atlantic bringing widespread heavy snow and ice impacts...

...Hazardous cold is expected for much of the central and eastern
U.S. this weekend into early next week...

...Overview...

Broad upper troughing associated with a major arctic outbreak is
forecast to persist across the eastern half of the country through
early next week. At the surface, an arctic high pressure system
will bring dangerously cold temperatures to much of the central
and eastern U.S.. An upper low moving into the Southwest will
interact with northern stream energy diving south out of Canada
Friday into this weekend. This system will override the arctic
airmass while also ingesting Gulf moisture, resulting in
widespread significant snow and ice across the southern tier of
the country into the Mid-Atlantic and portions of the Northeast.


...Guidance/Predictability Assessment...

Model guidance generally remains in good agreement with the
aforementioned large scale pattern evolution, however differences
in the details persist. The most notable question deals with how
much interaction we see between the southern stream and northern
stream energy over the Plains, and the overall depth/strength of
the resultant trough. More interaction and a stronger trough would
likely result in stronger downstream ridging and thus a farther
north storm track. This is indeed what just about all the 00z
models are trending towards. Generally a clean sweep, with the
deterministic physics based models, ensemble means, and AI guidance
all shifting north with the storm track. This trend really has
little to no impact on the fact that a widespread and significant
winter storm is going to occur...but it does play a big factor in
exactly where the rain/ice/snow lines set up.

So how confident are we in this trend, and will it continue or
revert back to earlier runs, is the big question. Given the nearly
unanimous trend in this direction, and at least a couple model
runs in a row showing such a trend, it does seem like this shift
has some merit. However, overall run to run consistency has shown
pretty large swings with the exact handling of both the southern
and northern stream energy. Suspect that the exact details of these
features is far from settled upon...especially the northern stream
energy which is currently strung out across much of western Canada
into the arctic. Thus tend to think that the unanimous model trend
could be a slight mirage and suggests more confidence in a
solution than there actually is at this point. Either way, it
should be stressed that in just about every outcome we get a
widespread and major winter storm with many areas getting
significant impacts regardless of these exact details. These
details are, however, important for exactly where the maximum snow
and ice totals occur. The current WPC QPF and temperatures were
derived before much of this 00z guidance was available, and thus is
a bit south of the new consensus. As described above, no guarantee
we dont see a shift back south in later models...but assuming some
persistence in the 06z/12z models then the WPC update today would
likely shift north to at least some extent.

Behind this system the general troughing in the east and ridging
in the west will persist. There is quite a bit of run to run
variability with the shortwave details which does result in quite a
large spread in the max/min temperature forecast across the
Plains. The NBM was in line with the model means, so we did not
make any changes. However, it should be noted that we will likely
have some larger than normal errors...just hard to stay whether
colder or warmer wins out along this ridge/trough interface.


...Weather/Hazards Highlights...

The two main highlights this week into the weekend will be the
significant winter storm that will impact the Southern Plains into
the Mid-Atlantic, and the hazardous cold temperatures across the
central and eastern portion of the country. The winter storm
should start impacting portions of the Southern Plains on Friday,
expanding eastward into the TN valley and Southeast by Saturday,
and into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast over the weekend. This is
likely to be a widespread event, with a large swath of hazardous
winter conditions.

On the southern side of this system significant freezing rain and
sleet is expected, likely resulting in dangerous travel conditions
and power outages. Given the arctic airmass in place, temperatures
will likely only be in the teens and 20s where freezing rain is
occurring, which will only act to increase travel impacts. The
exact swath of ice will a bit uncertain until we get closer to the
event...but currently the highest probabilities stretch from
portions of central TX into portions of the Southeast and SC/NC.
The aforementioned northward trend would likely shift this swath a
bit farther north, especially over the Southeast and southern Mid-
Atlantic, so will need to keep a close eye on that.

To the north of this icing threat will be a swath of significant
snowfall stretching from OK into the TN Valley and Mid-Atlantic.
Again, we will need to fine tune the northern and southern
gradients of this snow, and also the exact magnitudes...but a
rather wide swath of significant snowfall is likely. Temperatures
in the teens and 20s will increase travel impacts from this snow
and also result in snow ratios likely higher than climatology. This
should result in higher snowfall totals than applying a simple
10-1 ratio to QPF would give you...especially on the northern half
of the snowfall axis. One impact of the aforementioned northward
trend is an increase in the snowfall risk over portions of the
Northeast.

Dangerously cold temperatures are forecast to impact the north-
central U.S. under an arctic surface high, which will push much
colder than average temperatures farther south and east over the
weekend. The Northern Plains to Upper Midwest can expect extreme
cold, with temperatures likely reaching 20 to 30 degrees below zero
Saturday and Sunday morning. The coldest wind chills will likely
be Friday morning, but could still be looking at values reaching
negative 40 degrees in some locations Saturday morning.

Impressive temperature anomalies of 20-30+ degrees below average
will cover much of the central and eastern U.S. this weekend into
early next week. Highs are forecast to be in the teens as far
south as Oklahoma/Arkansas and across the Ohio Valley into the
northern Mid-Atlantic and southern New England. Lows in the single
digits will push as far south as central TX and into the TN Valley
and Mid-Atlantic. Temperatures should start to moderate by Tuesday
into Wednesday as the high weakens, though remain below normal
across the Gulf Coast to Eastern Seaboard. Meanwhile the Rockies
should block the cold air from moving into the West where
temperatures should generally remain near to slightly above
average.

Chenard/Kong


Additional 3-7 Day Hazard information can be found on the WPC
medium range hazards outlook chart at:
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/threats/threats.php

WPC medium range 500mb heights, surface systems, weather grids,
quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF), excessive rainfall
outlook (ERO), winter weather outlook (WWO) probabilities, heat
indices, and Key Messages can be accessed from:

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/medr/5dayfcst500_wbg.gif
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/medr/5dayfcst_wbg_conus.gif
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/5km_grids/5km_gridsbody.html
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/day4-7.shtml
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/#page=ero
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/pwpf_d47/pwpf_medr.php?day=4
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heat_index.shtml
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/#page=ovw