FIRST ALERT: Wet Roads Creating Tricky Travel for Holiday
By Tim Kelley ••
NBCUniversal, Inc.
Today (Wednesday): Clouding up, late day and evening showers. Highs in the 50s.
Overnight Wednesday Night: A few showers. Lows in the 40s.
Thanksgiving Thursday: AM snow & rain showers, then blustery and dry. Highs in the 40s.
More than half the nation is under a weather advisory, watch, or warning on this big travel day before Thanksgiving.
The East Coast is the quietest place. Here in New England, the storm that brought so much snow from Colorado to Minnesota is passing well to west and north, pushing a warm front in with rain showers developing later Wednesday.
We have a few hours of sunshine in the morning while clouds thicken. This is before showers develop midday in western New England and spread east to become heavy by about 6 or 7 p.m. in the central and northern parts of our region.
Temperatures Wednesday will be in the low 50s in southern New England, 40s north. Meanwhile, it’s in the 30s from the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont through central Maine, where snow and rain are expected from the evening through Thursday morning.
For most of us, we’ll get showers or a period of rain from about 6 p.m. to midnight. We may even get perhaps a thunderstorm. Wind will be increasing from the south, gusting past 30 mph.
Low pressure stalls near Northern Maine with a cold front pushing off the south coast Thursday. It’s going to be slow for us to clear out in northern and eastern New England.
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Snow will linger in the mountains of Vermont, northern New Hampshire, central and northern Maine through lunchtime Thursday. Some of our football games will require winter gear, like hats and boots and gloves. But for most of the busiest cities and airports, as well as central and southern New England, we should dry out by lunchtime, as the story will be the wind.
Gusts past 40 mph are likely as temperatures in the 40s, fall into the 30s by late in the day.
Wind will continue Thursday night as temperatures fall in the upper 20s in southern New England and lower 20s north. We should see sunshine return for most of New England Friday, with a high temperature in the 30s. Wind will continue to gust past 30 mph, giving us a wind chill factor below freezing all day long.
Caltrans via AP
Cars and trucks are seen stopped traffic on Interstate 5 near Dunsmuir, California, in this photo taken Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2019, provided by Caltrans. A "bomb cyclone," which triggers a rapid drop in air pressure, brought snow to the mountains and wind and rain along the California and Oregon coasts. Drivers on Interstate 5 near the Oregon-California border spent 17 hours or more in stopped traffic as blizzard conditions whirled outside. Some slept in their vehicles.
Jeffrey McWhorter/AP
Matt Younger, right, a pastor at Northway Church, embraces facilities associate Robert Lusk in their church's severely damaged sanctuary on Oct. 20, 2019, after a tornado tore through North Dallas. The twister knocked out power for tens of thousands of customers and destroyed buildings in North Texas, including the front of Floors Masters building that collapsed.
Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images
A man walks through the flooded feeder roads off of highway 69 North on Sept. 19, 2019, in Houston, Texas. Imelda dumped over 40 inches of rain in southeast Texas over the week.
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department via AP
A family is rescued via fan boat by a member of the Texas Parks & Wildlife department from the flood waters of Tropical Depression Imelda near Beaumont, Texas, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019.
Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images
Cars pull to the side of the freeway of highway 69 North to get by the flood waters on Sept. 19, 2019, in Houston, Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott has declared much of Southeast Texas disaster areas after heavy rain and flooding from the remnants of Tropical Depression Imelda dumped more than two feet of water across some areas.
Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images
A man tries to direct a school bus on the Imelda-flooded Hopper Road on Sept. 19, 2019, in Houston, Texas.
David J. Phillip/AP
Angel Marshman wades through floodwaters from Tropical Depression Imelda after trying to start his flooded car, Sept. 18, 2019, in Galveston, Texas.
Martin Meissner/AP
Nanook the polar bear dives into the water during an extreme hot summer day at the zoo in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, July 24, 2019. A second heat wave moving through Europe has cities in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and more bracing for soaring temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Geilenkirchen recorded its all-time record high at 104.9 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday, with even higher temperatures predicted for Thursday.
Getty Images
Lifeguard Luke Orot of Anchorage watches over beachgoers at Jewel Lake on July 4, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska is bracing for record warm temperatures and dry conditions in parts of the state.
Lance King/Getty Images
A welcome sign at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport shows 86 degrees weather at 3:07 pm on July 4, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska is bracing for record warm temperatures and dry conditions in parts of the state.
Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images
A policeman stands next to vehicles buried in hail in the eastern area of Guadalajara, Jalisco state, Mexico, on June 30, 2019. - The accumulation of hail in the streets of Guadalajara buried vehicles and damaged homes.
Charlie Riedel/AP
Cleanup continues at a destroyed home, May 30, 2019, after a tornado tore through the countryside near Linwood, Kansas. The National Weather Service say they received 934 tornado reports for 2019 alone, up from the annual average of 743.
John Minchillo/AP
Storm damaged homes remain on May 28, 2019, after tornadoes passed through Indiana and Ohio on Memorial Day evening in Brookville, Ohio.
Savannah Weingart/Tornado Adventures
A tornado rips through McCook, Nebraska, on May 17, 2019. A string of severe weather swept Midwest states from Nebraska to Texas, bringing along floods, hailstorms and tornadoes across the region.
Salvatore Allegra/AP
Mount Etna spews lava during an eruption on May 30, 2019. Sicily's Mount Etna has roared back into spectacular volcanic action from Thursday morning, sending up plumes of ash and spewing lava.
Saviano Abreu/United Nation OCHA via AP
Mozambique's Macomia district is badly damaged, with some houses totally collapsed, in the aftermath of Cyclone Kenneth on April 27, 2019. Approximately 160,000 people in Mozambique were at risk from Cyclone Kenneth, which swept the area six weeks after Cyclone Idai killed 600 people in central Mozambique.
Caroline Haga/IFRC via AP
Floodwater drench the port city of Beira, Mozambique, on March 18, 2019. The Red Cross says that as much as 90 percent of Mozambique's central port city of Beira has been damaged or destroyed by Cyclone Idai. Mozambique's President, Filipe Nyusi, say more than 1,000 people may be dead.
Nebraska Sen. Sasse and Gov. Ricketts
Photos shared by Nebraska Sen. Sasse and Gov. Ricketts show the devastation being left by severe flooding, which includes massive ice chunks.
AP
Canada geese battle choppy water as a late winter storm packing hurricane-force winds and snow sweeps on March 13, 2019, in Denver. A bomb cyclone slammed into the Midwest on Wednesday, cutting power lines, grounding flights and stranding motorists on the road.
Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire
A severe storm made its way over Santa Barbara, California, on Tuesday, March 5, 2019. Santa Barbara County Fire's Mike Eliason caught some of the lightning strikes over Santa Barbara as numerous thunderstorms made their way through the region.
John LocherAP
Snow accumulates on a median along the Las Vegas Strip at the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign, Feb. 21, 2019, in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is getting a rare taste of real winter weather, with significant snowfall across the metro area in the first event of its kind since record keeping started back in 1937.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
People play in the snow in Las Vegas, Feb. 21, 2019, during a rare winter snowstorm. The rare event dumped up to eight inches of snow in some parts of the city.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
A view of the roof of a home that was swept down a hill by a mudslide during a rain storm on Feb. 14, 2019, in Sausalito, California. Fifty homes in the town of Sausalito were evacuated after a mudslide struck homes and sent at least one sliding 75 yards down a hill.
Lance Endo via AP
Snow gathers at the Polipoli Spring State Recreation Area in Maui, Hawaii, Feb. 10, 2019. A strong storm that hit Hawaii knocked out power, brought down tree branches, flooded coastal roads — and even brought snow. Snow is not unheard of in mountainous parts of the tropical island chain, but officials say the coating at 6,200 feet at a state park on Maui could mark the lowest-elevation snowfall ever recorded in the state.
Brent Edwards via AP
Snow dusts black volcanic cinders at the Polipoli State Recreation area on the slopes of Haleakala near Kula on Maui, Hawaii, Feb. 11, 2019. A strong storm hitting Hawaii has knocked out power, brought down tree branches, flooded coastal roads — and even brought snow.
Kiichiro Sato/AP
Commuters wait for a train as snow falls on Jan. 28, 2019, in Chicago. "Possibly life threatening" wind chills could dip to negative 55 degrees in northern Illinois throughout the week - low temperatures not seen in the last quarter century. Cities in the northeast are seeing temperatures dip from a mid-week blast of cold Arctic air moving south. Some southern states like Mississippi and Alabama are even expected to see snow.
Courtesy Inge Groot
Extreme temperatures froze parts of the Niagara Falls at the Canada-U.S. border, as seen in this photo taken on Jan. 22, 2019.
Our Thanksgiving system then stalls over eastern Canada and strengthens.
This is creating a block in the atmosphere so the powerhouse storm that came in to California Tuesday is going to be forced to track south of New England later in the weekend.
We should have a nice, dry day on Saturday with a high temperature again in the 30s as wind decreases.
Then, clouds return Sunday with a chance of rain or snow developing during the afternoon. The rain-snow line will be further south than last Sunday.
Low pressure will reform south of New England Sunday night and early Monday, with the rain-snow line likely collapsing toward the coast. We may have a high impact event here Sunday night and Monday morning with snow removal crews out on the roads.
There will be a lot of shifting around with our storm track and timing as we get closer to the event, as seen here in our First Alert 10-Day Forecast.
