Forecasters are increasingly calling for a cold, soggy Thanksgiving week as winter storms continued to roll across the continental landscape from west to east.
The potentially wet, snowy and cold weather could add to what is expected to be the busiest Thanksgiving travel week yet, the Transportation Security Administration said.
An active weather pattern will continue across much of the country through the holiday week, NBC News meteorologists said Saturday. While confidence in the details was low, a rain- and snow-producing storm system could occur Wednesday and Thursday, they said.
A diagonal low-pressure front, accompanied by rain, snow and falling temperatures, was possible for the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Thanksgiving, the federal Weather Prediction Center said.
The diagonal front could extend from Mississippi to Pennsylvania, with snowfall depending on temperatures, the center said.
The National Weather Service office covering Chicago has snow and related travel impacts possible from Kansas City, Missouri, to Cleveland on Thanksgiving, with specific amounts difficult to predict at this time, it said.
The National Weather Service office for Minneapolis said in a forecast discussion that frigid air would likely arrive by midweek.
“The real Thanksgiving day is the day the Arctic front arrives,” the weather service said. “The biggest impact of this limit will be the well below normal temperatures we will have to have by the end of the month. … We will probably have sub-zero wind chills to start Black Friday.”
A plane rests on the tarmac behind raindrops on a window at Boston Logan International Airport in 2014.
A storm off the Pacific Northwest coast will move into parts of Oregon and Northern California early this week, bringing both rain and snow at elevations of 10,000 to 4,000 feet, according to the National Weather Service office in Portland, Oregon . .
It said the system will then move into the Midwest, where widespread snow was forecast.
Such a weather pattern for precipitation would follow the winter-like cycles of the month, with storms from the Pacific Northwest barreling south and east and moving through the center of the country, often bringing snow at higher elevations and rain elsewhere.
The latest such storm, a front accompanied by an atmospheric river of pouring precipitation, hit Washington, Oregon and northern parts of California this week, killing two and bringing historic rainfall.
Santa Rosa, California, recorded nearly a foot of rain in three days, which the weather bureau in Monterey said was a thousand-year event.
The TSA predicted a record event for the week as 18.3 million people were expected at security checkpoints from Tuesday to December 2. AAA estimates there will be 71.7 million travelers on the nation’s roadways during the week.
The Airport Corridor Transportation Association, based near Pittsburgh, recommended that people traveling by road stay with their vehicles if they get stuck in the snow and tie something bright to an antenna or other high point to alert first responders.
Car heaters can be used, but only for about 10 minutes per hour to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning. For the same reason, the windows should be opened slightly, according to the association.
And before traveling, the association said vehicles should be equipped with emergency and first aid kits, checked for worn tires and properly gassed.
Although the weather may seem wintry, it’s almost a month before the first day of astronomical winter begins: December 21.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
