Daytime highs could run 15 to 20 degrees below normal across the central United States on Friday, October 16, as a push of cooler air spreads into portions of the East, according to NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center. Highs in the affected area are forecast to stay mostly in the 50s and 60s, a sharp change after a stretch of well-above-normal warmth across the eastern half of the country.
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The cold air arrives behind a system that brought flash-flood and severe-storm threats on Thursday from Texas toward the Mid-Atlantic, while highs across the eastern United States had been running 10 to 15 degrees above normal. Forecasters expect the temperature swing to be most pronounced across the central states.
The Friday cold in the Weather Prediction Center forecast
The forecast comes from the center’s short-range discussion, issued at 208 AM EDT on Thursday, October 15, and valid through Saturday morning, October 17. For Friday, forecasters wrote that “15-20 degrees below normal temperatures spread across the central U.S. into portions of eastern U.S.” with highs mostly in the 50s and 60s, according to the discussion posted by the Weather Prediction Center.
The contrast is built into the setup. On Thursday, the same discussion says, cooler below-normal temperatures were spreading southeast into much of the central United States, while “10-15 degrees above normal highs continue across eastern U.S.” That means communities in the East went from running well above seasonal norms on Thursday to a cooler pattern arriving by Friday, with the central states feeling the biggest departure from normal.
Thursday’s excessive rainfall risk in west Texas
Rain was the other half of the story. Forecasters flagged a Moderate Risk of Excessive Rainfall across portions of west Texas for Thursday, with a Slight Risk covering a wider area of Texas and a Marginal Risk stretching from the Midwest into the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic. Those categories come from the center’s excessive rainfall forecasts, which grade the chance of flash flooding in a given area. Because that outlook day has now passed, the Moderate Risk was a Thursday call and is not a forecast for Friday.
Flash flooding was also a concern on Thursday from Texas into the Midwest, the Ohio Valley and the Mid-Atlantic, and severe storms were possible from the mid-Mississippi Valley into the Ohio Valley and the southern Plains. On Friday the severe-storm threat shifts to the Mid-Atlantic, and lingering showers are expected in Florida, the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and the Pacific Northwest.
Timing matters for anyone reading this on Friday. The discussion was written in the early hours of Thursday, so its Thursday items, including the west Texas Moderate Risk, the wider Slight Risk across Texas and the flash-flood concern from Texas toward the Mid-Atlantic, describe a day that has already ended. Its Friday items, meaning the cold air across the central states, the severe-storm threat in the Mid-Atlantic and the lingering showers, describe the day now underway. The valid period closes at 12Z on Saturday, October 17, which is 8 AM Eastern time.
Gaps in the WPC discussion
The text of the discussion does not mention snow, so the cold snap should not be read as a winter-storm forecast. Highs in the 50s and 60s are cool for mid-October across the central states rather than wintry, and the forecast says nothing about freezing overnight lows or frost, which would depend on local conditions that a national summary cannot resolve, and the discussion does not say how long the cooler pattern will last beyond its Saturday cutoff.
Tracking the rain and staying safe
The Probabilistic Precipitation Portal, available at the National Weather Service’s precipitation probability page, shows the range and likelihood of precipitation over the next 72 hours. Users can pick the contiguous United States, a single forecast office, a state or a river forecast center, and can view a high-end amount with a 10 percent chance of being exceeded, a low-end amount with a 90 percent chance of being exceeded, and the odds of reaching thresholds from 0.01 inches to 18 inches. The page updates hourly.
NOAA’s winter outlook, released the same day as the discussion, places a stormier South in the seasonal picture because a very strong El Niño is expected to shift the jet stream south and east, according to the agency’s October 15 release. A single week of weather says little about a three-month trend, but it shows how quickly a warm eastern pattern can give way to a cooler one.
The National Weather Service’s safety hub notes that flash floods “can occur within minutes and sometimes without any sign of rain,” and it links to fuller guidance on floods, cold and thunderstorms at weather.gov/safety. Residents of the central and eastern states can check local forecast offices for the temperature and rain outlook specific to a given town.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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