Extended Forecast Discussion
NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD
259 PM EST Wed Nov 26 2025

Valid 12Z Sat Nov 29 2025 - 12Z Wed Dec 03 2025

...Impactful winter storm expected from the Midwest to the Great
Lakes this weekend with disruptions to travel likely...

...Overview...

An increasingly colder weather pattern continues to be likely in
the central U.S. going into this weekend and early next week, as
upper level troughing remains anchored in place from Hudson Bay to
the Great Lakes. Shortwave energy pivoting around the base of that
trough will fuel the development of a strong winter storm across
the Midwest and Great Lakes this weekend with widespread snow, and
showers and thunderstorms towards the Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, an
amplifying trough across the western U.S. becomes an organized
southern stream system from Texas to the East Coast that will
likely deliver rain across the Gulf Coast/Southeast Tuesday into
Wednesday, and wintry precipitation farther to the north across the
Ohio Valley to the Northeast U.S.


...Guidance/Predictability Assessment...

Model guidance begins the period in reasonably good agreement,
showing a potent shortwave tracking through the northern tier and
supporting surface low pressure moving from the south-central
Plains Saturday quickly into the Great Lakes region early Sunday.
The new 12Z ECMWF and CMC are slightly slower with its low track
compared to the GFS and its previous runs, but still within reason
and a multi-model deterministic blend works well for the first part
of the period.

Meanwhile, another trough upstream dives southeast through the
West this weekend and pivots east early next week. The shortwave
energy will reach the southern stream but recent guidance continues
to have the feature generally stay phased within the broader
trough. Model guidance is pretty agreeable with its track and
timing, without any notable outliers. At the surface, a low may
spin up along the front and track somewhere near the Gulf Coast and
then into the western Atlantic. There are model runs and ensemble
members with a suppressed low track (12Z EC, EC-AIFS) and runs that
are more inland (GFS runs, older 00Z ECMWF). While the spread is
typical for the late medium range timeframe, even smaller scale
differences could lead to impactful sensible weather differences
like precipitation, including possible snow/freezing rain. The WPC
forecast gradually increased the proportion of ensemble means as
the period progressed and reached just over half means in the blend
by Day 7.


...Weather/Hazards Highlights...

The main thing that will make weather headlines during the medium
range period will be the development of another winter storm for
the upcoming weekend. Much of the Midwest to Upper Great Lakes
region can expect moderate to heavy snow of 4 to 8 inches on
Saturday into Saturday night, centered over southern Wisconsin
where a foot of snow is possible. This is likely to impact
Thanksgiving weekend travel, so see WPC's Key Messages for further
information. Snow is forecast to spread into the Interior Northeast
by Sunday, but with generally lower snow totals as the low track
moves quickly across southeastern Canada.

Farther south, warm air advection ahead of the cold front will
fuel the development of numerous showers and storms from eastern
Texas to Mississippi on Saturday, with the latest model guidance
suggesting the potential of 1 to locally 3 inches of rainfall, with
models continuing to suggest the heaviest amounts near the Gulf
Coast. The Marginal Risk in the Day 4/Saturday ERO for localized
flooding potential still looks reasonable for eastern
Texas/Oklahoma into the Lower Mississippi Valley. Into Day
5/Sunday, there will probably be a lull in the action with lighter
rains onshore as the front clears the Gulf Coast. Thus no ERO risk
areas are currently warranted for Sunday. Heavy rain could again be
a threat by Monday along the Gulf Coast to Southeast as the next
upper level system draws in additional moisture and potentially
causes the front to lift a bit north. Precipitation could spread
across much of the Eastern Seaboard Tuesday, but with considerable
uncertainty in the details of precipitation type and amounts, so
continue to monitor forecasts.

Rounds of upper troughing in the West should support precipitation.
Over the weekend, precipitation is forecast to move from the
Northwest into the Four Corners states, and heavy snow is possible
in the central Rockies on Sunday. Then additional energy moving
across the Northwest should support lower elevation rain and higher
elevation snow in the Pacific Northwest to Intermountain West and
Rockies by Tuesday-Wednesday.

Widespread and persistent below average temperatures for this time
of year can be expected for the central U.S. in particular through
most of the forecast period as arctic air spills south. The
coldest anomalies for both highs and lows (around 15-25 degrees
below normal) are forecast over the northern High Plains Saturday,
spreading across the rest of the Plains and Mississippi Valley
Sunday, and into the Midwest Monday- Tuesday given the snow cover
there. Lows are likely to be below 0F in the northern Plains to
Minnesota Sunday-Monday, with highs in the teens. Rounds of cooler
than average temperatures are likely in the East as well, but with
anomalies closer to 5-15 degrees below normal, aside from Florida
that should be warmer than average by a few degrees. The Rockies
westward should be near normal to a bit above for most of the
period.


Tate/Hamrick


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