March arrives Sunday. This may leave you thinking this siege of winter weather may let up soon. But another expansive stripe of snow and ice is looming starting Friday and through the weekend.

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After the , this time the West will join in the wintry weather, along with the Plains, Midwest and Northeast.

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Jet Stream Setup This Weekend

(The sharp southward plunge of the jet stream responsible for the colder weather and mountain snow this weekend in the West.)

West: Winter Returns

This kicks off with a major pattern change in the West.

February was largely dominated by an expansive ridge, or dome, of high pressure aloft that deflected the primary storm track into western Canada, keeping much of the region warm and dry.

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Starting Friday, the jet stream will take a sharp nosedive southward into the West, eventually closing off an area of low pressure over or off the California coast this weekend.

As that happens, impulses of snow will slide down the Cascades, Great Basin and Rockies through Friday. This will include the desperately snow-starved Sierra.

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Once the upper-level low closes off and stalls over California and Nevada, heavier, more persistent snow will likely be wrung out over the canyonlands of southern Utah, Mogollon Rim of Arizona, the San Juans and Sangre de Cristos of Colorado and New Mexico.

Snow will also blanket the mountains of Southern California as snow levels drop this weekend.

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Current Radar

Friday's Forecast

Southern Plains Friday

One of those upper-level impulses associated with the developing southward dip in the jet stream is spreading snow into some of the same parts of north Texas and southern Oklahoma, which were just blanketed by both Winter Storms and .

A fairly strong surface high pressure will still be in place over the mid-Mississippi Valley Friday morning, which means there won't be an infusion of Gulf of Mexico moisture.

That said, we expect an inch of two of fluffy snow Friday in the , northward into Oklahoma.

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Somewhat higher totals of fluffy snow are expected to the west over the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, as well as eastern New Mexico. Expect hazardous travel as pavement temperatures cooled by this week's wintry weather will allow accumulations to occur quickly, rather than melt.

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If that wasn't enough, some freezing drizzle is expected Friday night across southern Oklahoma and north Texas, making roads, especially bridges and overpasses even more hazardous by Saturday morning.

Saturday's Forecast

Winter Weather Alerts

Snowfall Forecast Through Monday Morning

Weekend Mess

The jet stream will then send a series of disturbances rippling over the battleground between arctic cold and warmer air trying to push north. The first of these will spread a wintry mess through the Plains, Midwest and Northeast this weekend.

The maps at left show our current forecasts for Saturday and Sunday. It should be noted that we expect the majority of precipitation to push through the I-95 Northeast corridor later Sunday into Sunday night.

Here is the general flavor of this weekend's mess.

Snow:

- A stripe of moderate to locally heavy snow from the central Plains to the mid-Mississippi Valley, southern Great Lakes and interior Northeast.

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Sleet/ice

- To the south of that stripe of snow, some sleet and/or freezing rain is possible from the central Plains into the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic states.

- This does not appear to be a major ice storm. Instead, impacts mainly look to be slick roads, especially bridges and overpasses, with perhaps some sporadic power outages in the extreme.

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If that wasn't enough, the snowy, icy beat continues into next week, as more jet-stream energy nosedives into California, and yet another wintry mess takes shape in the Plains, Midwest and East Tuesday into Wednesday.

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Check back with us at weather.com and The Weather Channel for the latest on this upcoming wintry mess.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Winter Storm Remus Photos

Angela Coxhead, left, and her 5-year-old son Liam Coxhead build a snowman outside a hotel, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015, in Attalla, Ala. Forecasters said the area was expected to receive some of the heaviest snow from a winter storm moving across the state and travel problems could persist into Thursday. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)