Severe Weather Threat Sat-Tues Central/Eastern US; Snow?

[yoda]

While there is still a fair amount of diversity among the NWP schemes
concerning the evolution of a possible widespread heavy rain + severe weather episode
early next week, the versions appear to be favoring a relatively strong
"Panhandle Hook" cyclone. That would be close to synoptic climatology for March,
where a shortwave-based low over the TX/OK Panhandle region accelerates toward
the St. Lawrence Valley and bombs out.
Convection should develop ahead of this low on Saturday (N TX, C, E OK),
reaching a maximum from LA....MS....AL....GA....TN....AR....SE MO....S IL....C, S
KY on Day 4. Many of the numerical models and the respective ensembles feature
a neutral or negatively tilted upper component, so portions of the Ohio
Valley, Mid-Atlantic states, and Southeast could be at risk for supercellular
thunderstorms if enough unstable air is present within the warm sector of the
hybrid-type (transforming from shortwave to longwave) cyclone. There is evidence of
ridge building from the Bahamas to near Bermuda, which would aid in high
dewpoint advection and increase the threat for heavy rainfall in the eastern third
of the U.S.
There is strong agreement among the computer outlooks that a long-lived 500MB
longwave pattern will become established across North America. A broad trough
complex covers the continent and the U.S. between the West Coast and the
Appalachian Mountains, while a subtropical high locks in just off the Eastern
Seaboard. Intense shortwaves over the Aleutian Islands move through the trough,
reaching maximum intensity over the Missouri and Ohio valleys. Two results of
this jet stream configuration are likely. One is over the Pacific Northwest,
which could see a long run of miserable, cool, windy and rainy conditions from
the digging impulses. The other is a more ominous threat: repeated episodes,
perhaps even an outbreak at some point, of severe weather from the Great Plains
through the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. The favored GGEM and GFS equations
support at least two disturbances affecting the nation between March 14 and 20.
It could be a very long, interesting spring season in Tornado Alley this
year....

P.S. Credit given to http://www.weathermatrix.net/archive/wx ... 0000.shtml
Where this comes from.... hmmm this could be very interesting spring...

[Colin]

Good, I'm hoping for at least a stormy spring to make up for this B-O-R-I-N-G winter.

[JCT777]

I too hope for a stormy spring. It's actually been pretty dry here since the beginning of January.