Stormy forecast ahead for the week of Thanksgiving

AccuWeather

Storms moving across the U.S. could cause significant delays on some of the busiest travel days of the year leading up to Thanksgiving.

Transcript

00:01It is time for the forecast feed, and we are looking ahead to that extended forecast for

00:05Thanksgiving week.

00:06A huge, massive, the biggest travel week there is, and again, this time of the year, we often

00:12deal with travel trouble, and we're going to be dealing with that yet again in some

00:16parts of the nation this time around as well.

00:19Let's get into the graphics, and you can see that we're going to be dealing with a stormier

00:21pattern as we emerge into Thanksgiving week.

00:25We're concerned about some snow, and to no surprise, we're looking north for that here

00:29at the north side of the storm track, the upper Midwest, and we're going to try to pinpoint

00:32exactly when that's a little more likely, and we'll be dealing with a milder setup for

00:36many in the east, and that will involve rain for some at times, and if there's an area

00:41where travel weather is probably going to be at its best, we're looking toward Florida,

00:45at least for much of the week until the very end of the week at that.

00:49But as we kind of take a look at the broad view first, here you can see the big picture,

00:54and Thanksgiving week, the red zone is where we're concerned about delays.

00:59Rain, some to the north.

01:00We're going to be facing potential for some snow up here, kind of the northern third of

01:05this area.

01:06That's where we may have some snow on the map, but rain, even potential for some thunderstorms

01:10south of the storm track at times as well.

01:13And we're going to dig into the computer models here before we give you our slightly more specific

01:17early week Thanksgiving day and then late week forecast.

01:20But just keep in mind, here's the snow potential zone, and again, it's not a slam dunk.

01:24We're still a week and a half to two weeks out here.

01:27But this is the area where we have some concerns that the north side of the storm track could

01:31bring travel delays.

01:32In Denver, to no surprise, you haven't seen much lately.

01:35In fact, you haven't seen any snow lately in Denver yet this autumn.

01:39But we may get into it here Thanksgiving week, and then up into areas around Minneapolis and

01:43points northward up into Duluth as well.

01:45Let's take a look at some models before we kind of revisit the graphics system and take

01:50you into maybe a more specific early week Thanksgiving day and late week forecast with

01:56some intel from Paul Pastelok and our long range team.

01:59And as we take a look, we're going to jump all the way ahead to starting with Thanksgiving

02:03week.

02:04Here's the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the 23rd.

02:08And what you may notice, big picture, this is the flow at around 20,000 feet into the atmosphere,

02:13500 millibars, so we're looking several miles up into the sky.

02:17And big picture, we have a pretty pronounced trough in the southwest, so more rain for

02:22California as we kick this off, but also a trough in the east, kind of recovering from

02:26a storm system with maybe some chilly flow at the beginning of this Thanksgiving week with

02:30a ridge of high pressure in between.

02:32So we got a zone of low pressure over eastern Canada, low pressure over the southwest, another

02:37zone of storm system in the Pacific Northwest, but an intermediate ridge over the Gulf.

02:43And that's going to lead to some warmth there.

02:44Let's go forward in time, and we'll take a look at how this plays out here.

02:50You can see here's the main troublemaker for the week.

02:52This trough that enters the plains, moving from the Rockies into the plains, we're going

02:56to see this tap into some Gulf moisture.

02:59And when you have the combination of warm flow from the Gulf into low levels, and then colder

03:03air upstairs spilling east, that is the combination that brings us rain production, snow to the north,

03:10but also sometimes in severe weather on the south side.

03:12And this system is going to be scooting east here with a little dip in the jet stream crossing

03:15the Great Lakes.

03:17But overall, Florida is fairly well protected here.

03:20There's Thanksgiving Day, and then at the end of the week, we may see an increasing chance

03:24for some showers to spill south as the troughiness moves a little farther east.

03:29That's one example.

03:30Here's the European.

03:31You can see it's a little more aggressive, a little earlier with that trough.

03:34There's the GFS.

03:35Remember, we're looking a week and a half into the future here, a week plus.

03:39But again, just the same message, just an earlier arrival and a slightly more aggressive

03:44system bringing some storm potential Monday night into the southeast.

03:47So you can see the disparity.

03:48Will there be storms in the southeast or not?

03:51The European would say yes, but we need to keep an eye out for the upper level flow.

03:55Later in the week, there will be more of a trough here moving through the plains in both computer

04:00model examples here.

04:02At the surface here, you can see we have the rain and shower and thunderstorm action pulling

04:06east and then kind of a second resurgence of that with a second system in the world

04:10of the GFS moving into the east.

04:12The northeast would be in trouble with some wind and rain on Saturday.

04:16Meanwhile, the European with the earlier arrival, the southeastern front, that's a problem

04:20that we have to keep an eye out for for Monday.

04:22And then another system later in the week.

04:24So again, just to summarize this, here we have your pre-Thanksgiving travel forecast.

04:29Rain at times to the south central to the northeast, there's the demand of snow up to the north.

04:33Thanksgiving Day, this is when some of the south and east could face some rain.

04:38And then more of that in the days following Thanksgiving, pushing down into more of Florida.

04:42So that for now is your forecast feed.

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