Severe weather today for the southeast, with snow far to the south possible this weekend

Light snow is falling this morning in north-central Texas with the snow accumulating in grassy surfaces and exposed areas this morning even in Fort Worth. The snow will likely not accumulate much in this area. The other aspect of this storm is the heavy rain and severe weather it is and will produce. The severe weather over Florida will gradually spread north and much of the eastern sections of the southeast will see a chance for severe weather today and tonight. Some isolated tornadoes are going to occur with the strong low level veering of the winds.

 

After this storm the next thing to watch is a system that could bring snow far to the south. Snow could be falling near Houston and Baton Rouge Friday night and spread into the interior southeast during the day Saturday. Right now I think several inches of snow could fall just north of the Houston area with perhaps a dusting of snow in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, perhaps a little more than that in Louisiana. As the system strengthens off the southeast coast, snow could accumulate in parts of north Georgia, the western Carolinas and across western and central Virginia, and the southern Delmarva area. I don’t think this will be a huge snow producer but a few inches could fall especially in the NC mountains into the Virginia mountains/piedmont. This of course can change but that is how I see it now. Right now I doubt any snow gets above southern Maryland or the lower Delmarva. Again as of now, this looks to be a light event, but snow in the southeast and lower mid-Atlantic in early December is certainly noteworthy.

 

Very cold air will be building in northwest Canada this weekend and next week with a 1055-1060mb high looking to develop and temperatures -30 to -40 looking likely and some of this cold air will get pushed into the US through December 10^th or so. The areas that may see the most impact will be the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies.

 

However, in about 7-8 days the jet stream configuration will become more zonal across the US and thus this cold air does not look to come into the US in the near future to a significant extent. This will lead to a warm period across much of the US from around 12/10 through at least 12/15. After than there are some signs the pattern may turn colder again, but confidence is very low at the moment and it would probably be 12/20 or so before any significant cold air makes it back into the US.