Slower travel for Thanksgiving week

AccuWeather

In today's Forecast Feed, AccuWeather's Bernie Rayno takes a look at what travel could be like around the United States the week of Thanksgiving.

Transcript

00:00day and then we have to see for the following weekend and once again we're going to take a look

00:05at Thanksgiving week on the feed and what you're going to see is what I'm looking at. This is

00:10powered by the AccuWeather professional site where you too can be a pro and we're going to show you

00:15some of the same tools that I use every day but we are starting to get some clarity. We are going

00:20to have some travel delays though we think from the Midwest toward the Northeast as we move into

00:26Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday as we track our storm. Now the storm that we're tracking Tuesday

00:32and Wednesday looks like it's going to move toward the East Coast on Thanksgiving Day. I don't think

00:36it's a huge storm but there will be some mostly wet weather along the East Coast and then behind that

00:42storm it's going to turn colder and this was highlighted by our long-range team headed by

00:48Paul Pasolok and the crystal ball meteorologist Joe Lumber. He talked about that on our long-range

00:53segment last week that as we got into December it was indeed going to be turning colder. Now let's

00:59take a look at the satellite here today. Let me put this on full so you could see it a little better.

01:05This is the storm that will be coming across the Texas Monday night into Tuesday, Midwest Tuesday

01:14into Wednesday, and East Coast as we move into Thursday. This is diving to the Southeast but we also

01:18have other pieces of energy coming in in the northern branch that will steer this storm and that's why

01:24there's still a little bit of complication moving forward. Listen, we're still, let's say today's

01:30Tuesday, about a week away and my rule of thumb is I don't trust the modeling until all of the pieces

01:39of the puzzle come along the North American coast. That's when I start to start trusting things a little

01:45bit here and I want to show you, let's go right to Monday. Now, this is the storm south of the Aleutian

01:52Islands. That'll be pushing into the southwest states as we move into Monday. This is European model.

01:58What the key to where this storm moves is this piece and this piece. Now yesterday, the modeling,

02:06especially the European and even the American model, said that this was going to be a strong enough piece

02:11that it was going to kick this forward and weaken it as we get into Monday night and Tuesday and then

02:18this piece of energy was going to come southward and strengthen and then we'd have a big snowstorm

02:23across the upper Midwest as we move into Thanksgiving Day. Modeling has changed a little bit here.

02:31The other thing I want to show you is that while there can be some snow next week, it would mostly

02:37be across the upper Midwest and here's why. We have what we call a split flow across the country.

02:41You have a northern branch and the southern branch. The southern branch, that has the moisture. No,

02:47that's not a good looking M. But the southern branch, that has the moisture. The northern branch

02:52has the cold air, but you'll notice it's not really connected. The cold air is separate from

02:57the moisture in the storm. As I play this out though, you will notice as we move forward, there is some

03:03connection Wednesday into Thursday. Here comes the cold, here comes the moisture. So ideally, just looking

03:10at this, it would be the upper Midwest, northern lakes, where if we do get snow next week, that's

03:17what it will be. The question is, is how is this going to play out? And there is some modeling

03:21differences. But I think they both show a storm coming out of Texas as we get into Tuesday and

03:29Wednesday. So here's the European model. Watch what happens here. So what happens here is that as we get

03:34into Tuesday, this first piece of energy, this one right here, isn't strong enough to kick this

03:41northward. This moves along in the flow. This brings colder air into New England. But this system

03:46has to wait for this piece of energy. Now watch as I play it through. As we get into Tuesday and

03:52Wednesday, there's the first piece by Wednesday morning. That first piece is all the way up towards

03:56James Bay and leaving. But the second piece is what's going to kick this storm east. Watch how it

04:01comes on through. There it goes. You see that? There goes the system. Tuesday night into the

04:06plains, and then Wednesday and Thursday across the Midwest. The American model, a little different.

04:12It doesn't even have that second piece of energy at all. It has it back in here. But what it does

04:17is it kicks the storm out faster. It's more Tuesday into Tuesday night. And by Wednesday,

04:24it's along the mid-Atlantic coast. By this time, the European has it way back across the

04:29southern plains. You see that? European, American. American has the storm here. The European has it

04:35well, well back into Oklahoma. You can see it a bit better on the surface map. There's the European

04:42on Wednesday evening. There's the American offshore. Look at the difference. See that Wednesday evening?

04:49Midwest, off the coast. So when you're forecasting, how do you make hay of that? What's the decision?

04:56I'm going to trust the European on this. I think it has the right idea. I think that what's going to

05:03happen is this storm is going to come out across the Midwest out of Texas Monday night into Tuesday,

05:08and then Wednesday, Midwest, Thursday along the East Coast. Now, I'm open for changes here,

05:17and here's why. Let me take you to this map here. So this is Monday evening. This is that first piece.

05:24Here's our upper low. Here's the second piece. Now, where are those systems right now?

05:32Let me show that to you here as we go to today. That first piece is up here. Let me go back. It's here.

05:43The first piece is up here, and the second piece is across Russia. It's not on the North American

05:50continent, is it? That's why we have to have room for this to change. But here's, I want to give you

05:57a forecast here. I do think there's a storm coming out across the Midwest as we get it coming out of

06:05Texas and into the Midwest as we head into Tuesday and the Wednesday here. So I'm sorry, this is Tuesday

06:13right here, right in here. So there's going to be some travel delays across the central part of the

06:18United States. There could even be some strong to severe thunderstorms within this red area.

06:22So this is where we're going to have the delays on Tuesday across the Midwest. Then the storm moves,

06:29weakens a little bit into the Ohio Valley. There may be some delays there. And your Thanksgiving day,

06:35wet along the East Coast, the Southwest looks A-OK, but then colder air arrives the following weekend.

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