Weather Wednesday December 11 2024 Heavy Rains in the Northeast

...Widespread heavy rain threat developing from the central and easternGulf Coast to the entire East Coast tonight into Wednesday......Arctic air to plunge south and eastward across the northern Plains,Upper Midwest, and Great Lakes tonight into Wednesday......Another round of significant lake effect snow to begin Wednesday andcontinue through Thursday downwind of the Lakes...A developing storm system over the Southeast U.S. is set to bringwidespread heavy rains from the central and eastern Gulf Coast to theentire East Coast tonight into Wednesday. A wave of low pressure willrapidly strengthen and move northeastward across the interior Mid-Atlanticand Northeast, dragging a strong cold front along with it. Ahead of thefront, warm and moist air will set the stage for numerous showers andthunderstorms, some of which could become strong to severe. This isespecially the case across eastern North Carolina on Wednesday, where theStorm Prediction Center has issued a Slight Risk (level 2 of 5) for severethunderstorms capable of producing damaging wind gusts. Elsewhere alongthe Eastern Seaboard, the main concern will be a period of heavy rain withembedded strong thunderstorms and intense downpours. Despite much of theregion currently experiencing moderate to extreme drought conditions, therain, while mostly beneficial, could still lead to some localizedinstances of flash flooding. The more urbanized locations and poordrainage areas would have the greater risk of flooding issues.The cold front will sweep across the East Coast Wednesday into Thursday,with much colder air surging in from the north and northwest in its wake.This Arctic blast will first plunge into the northern Plains and UpperMidwest tonight before expanding eastward across the Great Lakes,Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Wednesday and Thursday. High temperatures thenext couple of days will be roughly 10 to as much as 30 degrees belownormal. The cold post-frontal air mass will also help to change rain tosnow across the western slopes of the Appalachians and interior portionsof New England and the Northeast with at least modest accumulationslooking like a decent bet.Attention then turns to yet another round of significant lake effect snowdownwind of the Great Lakes Wednesday through Thursday. The aforementionedArctic air will stream across the still relatively warm Great Lakes andignite intense bands of lake effect snow, initially downwind of LakesSuperior and Michigan on Wednesday and then downwind of Lakes Erie andOntario Wednesday night into early Thursday. By the time the snow startsto taper off on Friday, snowfall totals of 1 to 2 feet are likely in thefavored Snow Belt across portions of northwest and western New York State,far northwest Pennsylvania, far northeastern Ohio, the Upper Peninsula ofMichigan and the western portions of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.