Day 1 Convective Outlook
NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
1111 PM CST Sat Jan 03 2026
Valid 041200Z - 051200Z
...NO SEVERE THUNDERSTORM AREAS FORECAST...
...SUMMARY...
Widely scattered, generally weak, thunderstorm activity is possible
today across parts of central California and the Pacific Northwest
into portions of the Great Basin.
...Discussion...
Mid-level troughing, digging into and through the northern Mid
Atlantic and Northeast early today, is forecast to quickly turn
eastward offshore and across the Canadian Maritimes through the
remainder of the period, trailed by a more modest perturbation
digging across the Florida peninsula and Bahamas vicinity. A
broadly confluent mid-level regime in its wake is forecast to
support the eastward progression of cool surface ridging into and
across the Atlantic Seaboard, with perhaps some further southward
advancement of the weakening leading edge of the cold air possible
across the southern Florida peninsula and central through
southwestern Gulf Basin.
While mid/upper ridging is likely to be maintained across much of
interior North America, it appears that it will gradually lose
amplitude as a number of smaller-scale perturbations, emerging from
splitting large-scale troughing near the Pacific coast, progress
through it. Across the eastern Pacific into western North America,
models generally indicate that one weakening short wave impulse will
accelerate inland across the central California coast and Sierra
Nevada during the day, trailed inland by a somewhat stronger, but
weakening, perturbation across the Pacific Northwest and Cascades,
in advance of a sharply digging perturbation across the mid-latitude
eastern Pacific.
...Pacific Coast into Intermountain West...
Mid-level cooling and forcing for ascent overspreading the region
today through tonight probably will contribute to the evolution of
thermodynamic profiles occasionally becoming at least marginally
conducive to widely scattered convective development capable of
producing lightning.
...Southern Florida...
Mid-level cooling and forcing for ascent, associated with the
digging short wave trough, might contribute to sufficient
destabilization for an isolated brief thunderstorm or two, mainly
across the interior southern peninsula through southeast coastal
areas late this afternoon.
..Kerr.. 01/04/2026
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