Travel during the week of Thanksgiving

AccuWeather

In today's Forecast Feed, Bernie Rayno takes a look at what the week of Thanksgiving could look like this year around the country.

Transcript

00:00And we're going to take a look at Thanksgiving week. That's the story on the feed. And we're

00:06going to use some of the same tools that we and our long range team use on a daily basis

00:11to give us an idea of what to expect as we head into the busiest travel time of the year. All

00:18right. I want to give you a snapshot. No need to bury the lead here. This is what we're looking at

00:23as we get into Thanksgiving. And I'll show you why we're going to, why we're making this forecast

00:27here. We are going to look at a storm track coming in across, well, the Northwest at times

00:32in the Northern California. But we do think there's going to be an area of high pressure here

00:36down across Florida. That should deflect these storms northward. So as far as the entire Thanksgiving

00:43week travel, we're looking at the Northern tier, perhaps all the way down though, in the Central

00:49and Northern California, that at times we're going to be looking at some delays. Right now,

00:54we think the Southern tier of the U S from the Southwest toward much of the Carolinas and

01:00in the Florida will likely not have many delays due to the weather here. But again, as we get

01:06a little closer, we'll start to zone in on, um, on that forecast here. But I want to show

01:12you how we'll get, how we get there, there, uh, how we get there from now toward Thanksgiving

01:17day weekend. I want to show you some of the modeling we look at now for those that are regular

01:22visitors to chaos, to clarity in the feed. You know, I always look at what we call the

01:26500 millibar or where we look at the jet stream. Because if you think about it, if you know the

01:30jet stream, you know where the storms are going to be and you know where the storms are going

01:34to go. Now, before we get to Thanksgiving week, let's start a little before that. Okay. Let's

01:40start, uh, as we get into next week here. So here we go. We're starting on Wednesday, Wednesday,

01:49the 19th. And what do we see here? Well, I was talking about that area of high pressure. This is

01:53the European model. There it is. You see, you have an area of high pressure across Florida here.

01:58That's the European model. This is the American model. Not as strong, but still an area of high

02:02pressure. The difference in the modeling starts with this next dip in the jet stream coming across

02:08the central U.S. Look at how sharp the GFS or the American model is. European is a little slower

02:15with it. A little faster, I should say, and weaker. And notice as we head toward the weekend, it takes

02:20that system very quickly Thursday into the lakes. And then in the Saturday, here we go Friday night

02:26into the Northeast as a weakening system, lifting out. Next system drops in to the West. The GFS a lot

02:33different though. Take a look at this. The GFS has it a lot stronger. And look at this. It has a closed

02:38off upper low Friday. So it's got a storm here. The American model that has it there. Look at the

02:44European. Nope. It's way up here. So how do you resolve that? I'm starting to think that maybe

02:53instead of the GFS locking it off down here and the European in here, it's some kind of a compromise.

03:00So something goes through the Northeast as we get in toward Friday and Saturday here. Then as we get

03:07the Thanksgiving week, here's the difference in the modeling here. See, the European is showing the

03:13next system coming on in on Monday. There it is. The GFS already has it offshore. But both of them

03:19show this. A dip in the jet stream. This is Monday the 24th. You see that? The European shows it.

03:27American models shows it. European, American. So both show that. So that kind of gives us a clue

03:32that we get in the Thanksgiving week. It appears to us that you're going to have a storm coming into

03:38the West Coast. Here's your area of high pressure. This is on the American model. And that seems

03:44reasonable that we're going to have an area of high pressure across the Southeast. What does that mean?

03:49That's why we think much of the Southern tier of the U.S. likely looks dry. But with this dip in the

03:56jet stream coming in to the West Coast of the United States like this, and our high pressure in here,

04:02that tells us that the storm track is going to be something like this as we head in the Thanksgiving

04:08week. So based on that, and I want to go back to that, based on that, thinking that that's the way

04:15the pattern is going to be, perhaps we don't have the specific details, it seems reasonable to us

04:20that if you're, if you're, let's say, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, in the word, the Northeast,

04:28seems to me like that's the area that we're going to see some travel delays. But from the Southwest of

04:34Florida, you should be a-okay. And that's the feed.

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