Active Storm Pattern Gearing Up Over Much of Southern U.S.

Posted: January 28, 2023 1:06 pm

Now is the time to start looking ahead to next week’s forecast, likely to bring a host of weather impacts to a large part of the southern Plains and the Mississippi Valley beginning Sunday and lasting through Thursday. Here is a look at the possible impacts your area may face and when it will all fire up.

Moisture from Gulf to Pair with Arctic Air to Trigger a Series of Storms

A string of at least three storms are forecast to bring a mix of rain, ice, and snow to a wide swath of the southern U.S. over the course of five days. The weather maker will bring in the moisture-rich air anchored over the Gulf of Mexico, helping to fuel the storms as they meet with the blast of Arctic cold air filtering down from the north.

The cold air is impacting much of the northern Plains, the northern Rockies, and the Midwest this weekend. This mass will continue to push to the south and meet up with the moisture coming up from the Gulf to create the parade of storms along the line that divides the two competing weather events. While this zone will see periodic batches of dry air, this calm weather pattern will not hang on for long.

When to Expect Each Storm to Arrive

Snow is in the forecast for a corridor stretching from northern Texas into Oklahoma and up through the middle of the Tennessee and Mississippi valleys. This is the same part of the country that saw significant snow accumulation last week.

The wintry precipitation will get its start early Sunday after a cold front moves through the Plains and the Midwest, ushering in the necessary cold temperatures to create snow and ice. Forecasters are warning that a coating of ice may fall across eastern Oklahoma, northwestern Arkansas, and southern Missouri. This same area will also be under the threat of light snowfall.

This precipitation is an offshoot of the Alberta clipper storm that is already bringing snow to parts of the Rockies and the Great Lakes. Major metropolitan cities such as Chicago and Detroit picked up significant snow out of this weekend storm system.

Once the first storm moves through the Southeast to start the week, another system will be gearing up to strike Texas and beyond. This second storm will bring in even more moisture from the south, setting up over the Lone Star State late Monday and into Tuesday before moving into the mid-Mississippi Valley.

This storm could create a number of travel disruptions on Tuesday to cities across the Texas Panhandle, into Oklahoma City, and through parts of Arkansas and Kentucky. Be sure to enable severe weather alerts on your phone if you live in this part of the country.

One more storm is then forecast to track through the same general area on Wednesday and Thursday. It is still too far in advance to determine the specific impacts of this storm. You will want to check back on its progress as meteorologists fine-tune their forecasts in the coming days. At this point, it looks as if this third system of the week will have the potential of bringing in freezing rain and sleet that is capable of triggering widespread power outages and difficult driving conditions.

In addition to the wintry weather impacts, this same line of storms will also deliver heavy rain to parts of the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast periodically throughout the week. A drier weather pattern is expected to set up along the southern tier of the U.S. by the end of the week, closing out this batch of precipitation.

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