Weekend Weather Spotlight: 3-12-21

Widespread rain and snow is expected across parts of the country as a front will be draped from the southern Plains to the Mid-Atlantic and a cut-off low moves from the Southwest to the Plains through the weekend. 

In the vicinity of the front, especially to the north of it showers and storms are expected with some of the rain being heavy especially in any storms. This activity will begin in the Ohio River Valley and will build southward to the TN Valley throughout today. This activity should gradually become more scattered into the weekend with the heavier precipitation developing further west into the Plains. 

The cut-off low begins today in the Southwest initially with scatted precipitation from the southwest to parts of the Plains. Precipitation with this system is expected to become more widespread and heavy at times throughout today and continuing through the weekend in the Plains and making it to the MS River Valley by late Sunday night. Widespread rainfall accumulations in the 2 to 4 inch range are forecasted for much of NE, KS, southern MO, and possibly northern OK and northern AR, and widespread significant snows are forecasted for parts of the Intermountain West, and Central High Plains with accumulations getting over a foot or more. This low will begin to pick up eastward propagation by Sunday night as the next system builds into the Northwest and will bring increasing rain chances to areas from Seattle to San Francisco by Sunday evening.