After our first taste of winter, many are wondering if there will be another chance at winter for our Thanksgiving holiday. We’ll discuss that in a moment, but let’s take a look at the holiday week leading up to Thanksgiving. We’ve had significant precipitation across the Hudson Valley over the last week, and we’ll see another round of precipitation on Tuesday.
Futurecast Radar: Tuesday 12am to Tuesday 8pm
A storm system in southern Canada pushes east, and spreads some areas of rain showers and steady light rain before dawn on Tuesday, and continuing into late morning before tapering off around noon on Tuesday. Rainfall totals should be rather light, but still… the precipitation is very welcome!
Most locations should see roughly a quarter inch of rainfall on Tuesday. Temperatures will be mild… in the low to mid 50s, so no wet snow is expected on Tuesday. But the Tuesday AM commute could be a damp one, so be sure to plan accordingly.
Behind that system, cooler air drops down from Canada, and brings us back to temperatures that are near or just below average for this time of year. This sets the stage for our Thanksgiving / Black Friday storm. The exact timing needs to be ironed out, but below is a rough idea of what we’re thinking about at this stage of the game…
The exact position of the boundary left in place from our Tuesday event, should help determine where our Thanksgiving storm threat goes. Computer guidance has very little agreement… with the European model taking the northern track, which would bring a cold rain to the Hudson Valley. The GFS model keeps the storm pressed further south… almost missing the Hudson Valley entirely. The NAM model shown above however, takes the middle track, which could bring a mix of wet snow and rain to the Hudson Valley during the daytime hours on Thanksgiving. As of Sunday night… each track has roughly the same chance to occur, so we’ll be watching closely to see which solution becomes more likely as we get closer.
Longer Range Looking Very Cold!
As we close out the month of November, once the Thanksgiving / Black Friday storm pushes through… some very cold, Canadian air should drop into the Eastern half of the US. The jet stream should see a strong ridge of high pressure build over the west coast of the US… which should cause a deep trough to dig into the east. The result looks likely to be an extended period of very cold temperatures in the eastern half of the country.
This map shows the temperatures over a 5 day period of December 1st through December 6th. Over those 5 days, the average temperature looks to be anywhere from 10 to 15 degrees below the average for this time of year. Highs in the first week of December are likely to be stuck in the low to mid 30s… and overnight lows in the low 20s, and even some upper teens. On the back side of Thanksgiving, things are going to feel very much like winter… very fast.
We’ll be tracking all of this along the way and will share periodic updates as our data gets a bit better. For now, have a great start to the work week!