National Weather Forecast

On Thursday, a frontal boundary from the Great Lakes and Northeast to the Southern Plains will help bring both wintry and stormy weather to this swath of the nation. Rain and snow continue out west due to systems in place.

Several inches of snow are expected to fall in the mountains out west through the end of the week. Meanwhile, as we head toward the end of the week, another round of 3”+ of rain will be possible in the central portion of the nation.

The heaviest of that rain across the Ozarks to the Ohio Valley will be Friday to Friday Night, which is where we see a Moderate Risk of excessive rainfall that could lead to flash flooding. This is due to expected repeated storms that could lead to 3-5” of rain in a 24-hour period in an area that has had recent heavy rains.

Meanwhile, Friday also features the potential for severe weather in the Southern United States. An Enhanced Risk of severe weather (threat level 3 of 5) is already in place across portions of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. All severe weather types (hail, wind, and tornadoes) will be possible.

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Biden is creating new national monuments to protect land in Nevada and Texas

More from NPR: “President Biden on Tuesday proclaimed two vast swaths of land — Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada, and Castner Range in West Texas — as national monuments, a designation that preserves a total of more than 500,000 acres of land from new development. “We’re protecting the heart and the soul of our national pride. We’re protecting pieces of history, telling our story that will be told for generations upon generations to come,” Biden said at a conservation summit. Biden had pledged to conserve more land when he took office. But lately, he has come under intense criticism from environmental groups for approving a new oil drilling project in Alaska. Some environmentalists argued the Willow project violated the administration’s climate and conservation goals, even though the administration also announced it will prevent or limit oil drilling in 16 million acres in Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.

NASA’s Webb Spots Swirling, Gritty Clouds on Remote Planet

More from NASA: “In just a few hours of observations, the space telescope revealed a dynamic atmosphere on a planet 40 light-years from Earth. Researchers observing with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have pinpointed silicate cloud features in a distant planet’s atmosphere. The atmosphere is constantly rising, mixing, and moving during its 22-hour day, bringing hotter material up and pushing colder material down. The resulting brightness changes are so dramatic that it is the most variable planetary-mass object known to date. The team, led by Brittany Miles of the University of Arizona, also made extraordinarily clear detections of water, methane, and carbon monoxide with Webb’s data, and found evidence of carbon dioxide. This is the largest number of molecules ever identified all at once on a planet outside our solar system.

The next hot fast food menu item? Electric car charging

More from Axios: “Several major fast food and convenience store chains have recently announced a big push into electric vehicle (EV) charging, a trend that could accelerate efforts to expand the country’s embryonic charging infrastructure. Why it matters: Automakers are finally getting serious about electrification — yet many would-be EV buyers want more assurance they’ll be able to find chargers when they need them. Driving the news: Convenience store chain 7-Eleven recently launched its own EV fast-charging network, called 7Charge. The network has chargers across Florida, Texas, Colorado and California so far, with plans to expand into Canada as well. … Users will be charged based on the energy they consume or the time they spend charging, depending on local regulations. 7Charge is compatible with a wide array of EVs — even Teslas, though they’ll need an adapter.

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– D.J. Kayser