Heavy rainfall and strong winds are headed for Western states

Heavy rainfall, mountain snow and strong winds will slam Western states this weekend and early next week, the National Weather Service said.

Severe weather also will be possible in the central and Southern U.S. starting on Monday and continue through the rest of the week. Residual river flooding is possible.

Northern California’s showers were to get steady and heavy through Saturday evening as a strong cold front crosses the region, the National Weather Service’s San Francisco office said.

Southern California will see rain arrive a day later.

The weather service says a seven-day total could approach 20 inches of rain in Northern California and up to 3 inches in the southern end of the state.

California is not the only place expecting severe weather. Conditions are especially ripe for tornadoes in the Southeast and Great Plains. Specifically, the weather service said, that means Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, southern Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina and parts of Virginia.

Starting on Monday and continuing into the rest of next week, ample moisture will be pulled in from the Gulf ahead of a slow-moving cold front, leading to days of rain for a large swath of the central and Southern U.S., stretching from the central Gulf Coast up through the Ohio Valley.

The greatest threat for the heaviest accumulations of rain are northeast Texas into Arkansas and Louisiana and other parts of the lower or middle Mississippi River Valley, where five-day rain totals could exceed 7 or 8 inches.