Millions of Thanksgiving travelers to be impacted by rain and snow

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Jon Porter warns of stormy weather bringing rain and snow, which will significantly impact hundreds of millions of people who plan to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday this week.

Transcript

00:00There.

00:01Oh, that looks pretty.

00:02You know I love this location.

00:03You do.

00:04Best location in the nation?

00:05Yep.

00:06That's what I would say.

00:07Okay.

00:08I think you say that about Cleveland, too, though, don't you?

00:09Well, yeah.

00:10We mix and match that, I guess.

00:11Yeah.

00:12It's got a good ring to it.

00:13I mean, this looks like a snow globe.

00:14Literally a snow globe.

00:15You take it, you shake it, and that's what the flakes look like coming down.

00:17They're coming down fast, and they're pretty big.

00:19And you ain't seen nothing yet in this area.

00:21You wait until a week from now.

00:22All right.

00:23Joining me right now is AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.

00:26You know, John, Paul Pastelok sounded the alarm for this cold air mass weeks ago.

00:32We were talking with meteorologist Joe Lumberg, the crystal ball, last week about this cold

00:37air mass.

00:38You and I were looking at this over the weekend, and I think we have some important talking

00:42points that we want to get to about the first week in December.

00:45It's a big deal, a big shock to the system here, coming with widespread cold over much

00:50of the central and eastern part of the United States, a true taste of January, and it's

00:55going to come in multiple waves, Bernie, that will be accompanied by very significant

00:59lake effect snow downwind of the lakes.

01:02Now, the one thing that you know I've been obsessing about is that typically when you

01:08get this cold air along the east coast, at some point there's going to be an attempt

01:15for a coastal storm.

01:17That's the way it happens.

01:18Now, we have a low confidence that right now, but that is something that we're going to

01:24continue to keep an eye on.

01:25I think, John, if it would happen, it would be late next week.

01:30That's right, and that might be when the pattern starts to flip to some moderation of this

01:34cold air.

01:35Oftentimes, when the pattern is changing, that's when you look for a big storm.

01:39But the reason that you've been obsessing about this, and we've gotten a few text messages

01:42from you over the weekend about this, is the fact that whenever you have such a sharp variation

01:48in temperature setting up along the eastern seaboard of the United States, that's a known

01:52storm highway.

01:54So, low confidence, but it's something for you to continue to monitor here at AccuWeather.com

01:57over the coming days, but high confidence levels on the widespread cold and the lake

02:02effect.

02:03All right, let's talk about our next storm here, John.

02:05Here it is on the satellite picture.

02:07It's this upper low off the California coast.

02:10Now, I talked about this just a few minutes ago.

02:13I want to talk about it again.

02:14Let's track this energy here, John, because we have something called the Norm MacDonald

02:19a legendary forecaster in southern New England, and his rule is, and I know you know from

02:26being in southern New England, that is a name that still resonates in southeastern New England.

02:31Where the storm enters along the west coast, it usually exits along the east coast.

02:36It's a great rule before, and this is from a time where the computer forecast guidance

02:40wasn't as sophisticated.

02:42Where the storm comes in the west coast is oftentimes the latitude that it exits the

02:46east coast.

02:47So that gives us more confidence that a storm might try to exit toward Virginia.

02:52Yeah, let's talk about that, John.

02:54So when you look at the scenarios, these are the range of possibilities here.

02:58Now, both scenarios have showers and thunderstorms and some severe weather across the south,

03:04but it's the snow part where the weaker and stronger, that's where they differ.

03:09Yes, if the storm is stronger, Bernie, as you mentioned, we're going to have a skiff

03:13of snow on the northern side of this from parts of the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes to

03:17northern New England.

03:18However, if the storm is a little bit less intense, it's going to track further to the

03:23south and there will be very little snow on the northern edge of it.

03:26This is on the Wednesday and Thursday time period, which of course is especially impactful

03:31since this is a big time for holiday travel.

03:33You know, and based on taking maybe a blend of some of the computer models and the old

03:40Norm MacDonald rules, we call it, you'll notice where we're exiting that storm, John, right

03:44across Virginia.

03:45So that does mean that there's going to be some snow in the Midwest.

03:50The real question is, is New England, where the cold air is deeper, I think there's at

03:54least the potential, west of 95, there could be several inches of snow.

03:58Yes, from the Berkshires up into parts of northern New England where that deeper cold

04:02air, that would take a storm track closer to the coast.

04:06Stay with us here at AccuWeather over through the next several days, we'll keep you updated

04:09on that.

04:10That's the greatest risk for the heaviest snow.

04:12Back here toward the Great Lakes, this would be more like coating to an inch or two likely

04:16in some areas should that northern scenario materialize.

04:19And as we mentioned, waves of cold, January cold following this storm, tremendous amounts

04:24of lake effect, a lot going on behind this storm.

04:28AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter, John, thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather

04:32Early.

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