Weather roundup Thursday December 26, 2024 with Ion Weather Meteorologist Steve Pellettiere

Continued rounds of heavy rain and mountain snow for the PacificNorthwest......Heavy rain and strong thunderstorms return for eastern Texas intoLouisiana on Thursday......Relatively mild conditions across the majority of the country throughFriday...The very active storm track across the eastern Pacific and into thePacific Northwest will continue to make weather headlines through the endof the week.  The next in a series of atmospheric river events is nowongoing across the Pacific Northwest, with moderate to heavy rainfall anda few thunderstorms continuing into Thursday morning.  This round willlikely result in widespread 1 to 3 inch rainfall totals, and there may besome instances of flooding where rainfall rates are highest.  Once thisfirst system moves inland, there will be a short-lived break Thursdayafternoon before the next round arrives Thursday night for many of thesame areas, bringing an additional 1-2 inches of rain by Friday morning. Strong and potentially damaging winds are also expected near the coast andthe coastal waters given a strong low level jet with these storm systems. The Cascades and the Olympic Mountains will get hammered with heavy snowon the order of 1-3 feet, where winter storm warnings are in effect, andlighter snows heading south into northern California with winter weatheradvisories.  The higher terrain of the northern Intermountain West and theNorthern Rockies will also get noteworthy snowfall as moisture from thisstorm system moves inland.Unsettled weather conditions are also expected for portions of thesouth-central U.S. going into Thursday, with an amplifying upper troughdeveloping a new surface low and moisture plume from the western Gulf,heralding the development of scattered to widespread showers andthunderstorms.  Both wind shear and instability parameters appear tobecome increasingly favorable for some severe weather on Thursday, andtherefore the Storm Prediction Center has portions of the ArkLaTex regionin a Slight Risk for severe storms.  Heavy rainfall could also be an issuewhere these storms train over the same areas, and there is a Slight Riskof flash flooding from eastern Texas to central Arkansas.  An axis ofheavy rain is likely across portions of the Mid-South going into Friday asthe storm system slowly moves eastward.