Stormy conditions in the Pacific Northwest could cause problems over Thanksgiving week

Heavy rain and snow may have travel impacts across the Pacific Northwest on the days leading up to and including Thanksgiving.

Transcript

00:00Are you traveling anywhere around the northwest for the Thanksgiving holiday?

00:03You might want to listen up because there's an atmospheric river moving in.

00:06That means heavy rainfall, concerns about flash flooding, and even gusty winds,

00:10which all equals airport delays or even issues on the road if you're going to be driving through Washington or Oregon.

00:16The biggest issues are going to be along the coast, so think Seattle, Portland, and those airports seeing issues.

00:22Here's the footprint and the timeline. We're talking Tuesday night through Thursday,

00:26so during that peak travel time before Thanksgiving.

00:29Really, Monday is going to be your best travel day in the northwest.

00:32However, you're still going to possibly see some issues because of the last storm that's still moving inland.

00:39You can see there's fair and even poor travel conditions in portions of Washington and Oregon Monday,

00:43but it really just gets worse as we head into, especially Wednesday and Thursday.

00:47Could even have some impacts as you're maybe getting back home from wherever you spent Thanksgiving on Friday.

00:52Let's dive into a little bit more of the details, though.

00:54We're talking rainfall totals that could even exceed two inches in some areas,

00:58so we're especially concerned about flash flooding in low drainage areas and those winds.

01:03Even if you don't have issues from the rain, that certainly causes delays at the airport.

01:08There's one piece of good news with this for anyone who might be driving through the mountain passes in these areas.

01:13Snow levels are really going to stay above pass level, so you'll just be dealing with the rain,

01:16which still could cause some issues, but not as much as if we had heavy snow at pass level.

01:20We will see snowfall accumulation, but that's going to be isolated to higher elevations.