Lead Forecaster Daniel Crawley
Hope everyone has had a great weekend. Monday begins a busy week of holiday travel for people across the nation. What is the weather looking like for Thanksgiving across Western North Carolina? Well, here’s your answer…
Cold northwest flow that has dominated the weather over the past 7-10 days is relaxing and we will see the main flow at 500mb coming out of the west-southwest. That will allow for a gradual increase in temperatures through the week. Normal high temperatures this time of the year are in the upper 50’s.
The steering flow will also allow moisture aloft to move quickly across the southern tier of the country through midweek. The end result will be an increase in mid to high level clouds on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Bottom Line…
There should be little travel impacts for those coming in or going out through the first half of the week. So getting to your Thanksgiving destination should be relatively easy.
Thanksgiving Day itself will be the transition day as the next trough sharpens up and closes off somewhere in the Plains. There’s some disagreement on where things evolve at the upper levels of the atmosphere but regardless moisture will increase our ahead of the trough…
Clouds will thicken as we get into late Thanksgiving day and all sign point toward a rainy Black Friday for shoppers. And dependent on where the features aloft form the moisture could possibly linger into the early hours of Saturday.
Precipitation amounts look to be under a half-inch at this time but that could change as we get closer. Still it will be impactful for travel.
Summary
Mon-Wed: Dry, moderating temperatures (upper 50’s – low 60’s) variable clouds.
Thanksgiving Day: Increasing Clouds, Mild. (Temps near 60)
Black Friday: Showers possible, 50’s.