Ion Weather Saturday March 9 2024 Rain in the northeast , lingering showers in Georgia and Carolinas clearing Sunday

Snow gradually tapering off over the central High Plains as well ascentral/southern Rockies.Threat of flash flooding and severe weather expected to sweep acrossthe Deep South to the Southeast the next couple of days.An intensifying low pressure system will bring locally heavy rain andstrong winds from the Ohio Valley to New England late Saturday intoSunday.Wet snow expected across the Great Lakes to northern New England lateSaturday to Sunday as next round of rain and mountain snow reaches thePacific Northwest.The mid-section of the country will be in an unsettled pattern with activeto locally severe weather into the weekend as upper-level Pacific moisturein association with a subtropical jet stream will interacts with a coldair mass dipping into the center of the country. Meanwhile lower-levelmoisture from the Gulf of Mexico will be ingested into the system as well. These complex interactions will result in an axis of heavy rain andpossibly severe weather to develop over the Lower Mississippi Valleyspreading across the Gulf states and into the Southeast by Saturday. TheStorm Prediction Center has Slight Risks in effect for sever weatherthrough Sunday morning for parts of the Deep South and Southeast. TheWeather Prediction Center has Moderate an Slight Risks in effect for muchof the same region for excessive rainfall and flooding concerns.Meanwhile to the north, a low-level disturbance that has been sustaininglocally heavy snow over the central High Plains is forecast to weaken andallow the snow there, as well as the snow over the central to southernRockies, to gradually taper off into this evening.  By Saturday, a lowpressure center is forecast to consolidate over the Ohio Valley when thesystem intensifies more rapidly and tracks northeastward into the lowerGreat Lakes Saturday night. This will lead to areas of locally heavy rainalong with increasingly strong and gusty winds to develop from the OhioValley to New England late Saturday into Sunday.  Colder air wrappingaround the low pressure center is expected to change the rain to wet snowfrom across the Great Lakes to portions of northern New England especiallyfor the higher elevations.In the wake of these systems high pressure will build in over the centralU.S. and will promote drying out Saturday. The dry weather will extendinto much of the western U.S. However, moisture associated with the nextPacific system is forecast to reach the Olympic Peninsula later today withrain for the lower elevations and snow for rather high elevations.  Therain and mountain snow will expand southward across Oregon and intonorthern California on Saturday into Saturday night.  The Cascades willsee snow picking up intensity on Saturday as the next batch of moisturegets ready to reach the coastline of the Pacific Northwest by early onSunday.