Look ahead: Snow in northern Plains, Storms in South

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Joe Lundberg looks ahead to next week's weather for the U.S., which includes a late-week fire threat in the South Central states, snow in the northern Plains and storms in the South.

Transcript

00:00You told us about it back on February 28th and that's one of the big highlights for next week.

00:05It really is. I think it's one of the bigger highlights as you're going to see a big spring

00:08warm-up across a good chunk of the country with temperatures well above historical averages from

00:13the plains all the way to the eastern seaboard. It's not a one-day visit of this warm-up. I think

00:18it's going to last for several days in many locations. There are bigger concerns though.

00:22There's a storm that's going to come into California, rain and snow for that, but as it

00:25comes out across the plains, there's a late-week fire threat from New Mexico into the plains

00:30and that storm system will spread some snow across the northern plains, but also a severe

00:35weather threat farther to the south and east. We'll detail that over the next couple of moments.

00:38Here's the jet stream as it's going to look like over the next several days. You can see this

00:42feature here coming out of the southern Rockies this weekend and into the southern plains. That's

00:46going to generate quite a bit of wind in these areas and a risk for some blowing dust and some

00:51a high fire threat. Then that settles down late in the weekend, but then you look

00:54out to the west. Here's this feature with a little kicker in behind it. This wind is going

00:59to bring quite a bit of unsettled weather to California. A lot of rain, which you need getting

01:02down to the southern California. A lot of snow in the Sierra, but it's part of the pattern change.

01:07You see that trough in the west? Guess what? Downstream you've got a ridge and underneath this

01:11you've got a lot of warm air. We're going to see that for day after day after day.

01:15Look at these temperatures early next week. We're talking 60s and 70s widespread across

01:20the plains states and that's going to be spreading into the eastern seaboard.

01:23Philadelphia you probably get to 60 degrees on Monday and maybe into the upper 60s by Tuesday

01:28and it's not just a one or two day affair. You look at this on Wednesday. We're talking

01:32highs 60s in Denver, 70s in Wichita, St. Louis, Memphis, 78 in Charlotte, 80s in Dallas and

01:38Houston. So a lot of warm weather going to be spread across a lot of the country, Bernie.

01:42Yeah, and this time of the year though, Joe, we always are concerned when we see these storms

01:48coming into California. If they're strong enough, they can cause mischief and mayhem

01:54in the central part of the United States. We saw that with our storm this week and we do have

01:59concerns late next week. Yeah, there's going to be a system that will come out, I think,

02:04early to midweek and then work its way eastward. I think any severe weather threat with that is

02:08going to be confined to perhaps the Gulf Coast region, parts of maybe East Texas, Louisiana,

02:13over to the Florida Panhandle. I'm not terribly worried about that as a widespread thing,

02:17but as the second system comes out of the southwest, several aspects of it. To the south

02:21and east where it's bone dry, you're going to see strong winds gusting to 40, 50 miles per hour or

02:26better, blowing dust and a high fire threat. I'm really worried about that. On the northwest side,

02:31you've got cold air, so you've got snow and wind and a potential for blizzard conditions. But to

02:35the south and east, and it may not be just this area, I'm concerned there could even be some

02:39severe weather that gets this far north as that system rolls eastward late next week and next

02:44weekend. So it was March, February 28th. You gave us the heads up about a big warmup coming

02:50from mid-March. It is now mid-March. What's the one big thing we should get ready for

02:56for the end of March? Well, you know, the warmth is going to be coming for the central plains of

03:01the east. You're going to have several days of it. But if you look out into long range,

03:05the concern is that you may see some ridging that develops in the western part of the country.

03:09When that happens, you get a downstream trough and west-northwest flow. Often that means that

03:13spring's probably going to be on hold for the upper midwest, the Great Lakes, into the northeast.

03:17You're going to have some setbacks, I hate to say it, as you go through late March and into

03:21the month of April. And that's something that you and long-range meteorologist Paul Pasolak

03:25have been warning about for this spring, that it could be delayed from the lakes to the northeast.

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