Thanksgiving travel nightmare Nor'easter panic oh my god.
So ... it's kind of brisk out there. I'll talk to you about this arctic blast in a moment, though; right now, you're interested in whether or not we'll have the titular storm.
Here's what I think, 72 hours out:
Rain and drizzle arrive Tuesday afternoon, then may mix with some wet snow overnight as temperatures dip down toward freezing. Rain tapers considerably throughout Wednesday morning and afternoon.
Models are in considerable disagreement on a solution for this potential Nor'easter, but I think the eastern solutions--the ones in which the bulk of the moisture drifts out to sea--are more feasible.
I don't see a lot of travel issues for the day before Thanksgiving, other than the fact that people drive like assholes even more vigorously in any kind of precipitation. Rain is out of here by Wednesday around 6, then it gets a little windy (and cold) behind the system.
So here's the forecast:
Sunday 11/24 will be partly cloudy and really, super windy with an unseasonably frigid high of just 31. (Sustained winds will reach 20mph--with 30mph gusts--so wind chills will be in the teens). So it's not the day to, say, spraypaint little hoofprints on the parking lot outside your high school. It's the day to hunker in the snug by the fire with the wife and the dog and the papers. Low Sunday night into Monday could set a record (the current record is 17 set in 1938). So that's g.d. cold.
It's Garthe Knight, Michael's evil twin.Monday 11/25 will be cold, too: high of just 36 with partly sunny skies. Wind will be less assy, though.
Tuesday 11/26 is when the aforementioned Turkeygeddon® may or may not happen, but no it won't. Starting out partly cloudy with temperatures reaching in to the low 40s, then clouding up and raining. Temperatures will dip to 32 overnight, so there will be some mixing, but I do not expect measurable accumulation or travel foulness.
Wednesday 11/27 will see rain mixed with a little wet snow, tapering throughout the morning and afternoon. Highs will be in the upper 30s and it will be breezy behind the system. Overnight lows will dip in to the low 20s.
Thursday 11/28 is a holiday known popularly as Thanksgiving, but which derives from the Algonquin Toppoposh-ósquonk, which roughly translates to "Is this bountiful feast just a thinly-veiled attempt to lull us in to a false sense of security, white man?" Expect the following weather on this day: sunny, windy and cold, with highs only in the mid 30s and brisk northwest winds. Lows dip down in to the teens.
Friday 11/29 is popularly known as Black Friday since it is the day on which retailers expect to get into the "black," or profit, but which actually derives from the Iroquoian Tehalihwákhwa' Kahòntsi, which transliterates to "please allow me to follow my giving-of-thanks festival and bask in the spirit of Christmas by trampling total strangers to death in a frenzied, pre-dawn attempt to get a $49 flat screen television." Sunny and cold. High of 39, low of 20.
Saturday 11/30 has become known in recent years as Small Business Saturday so that people who flocked to big box retailers on Black Friday can assuage their consciences by purchasing overpriced, hand-crafted gewgaws down at the local boutique. Partly cloudy and breezy; high 42, low 26.
Sunday 12/1 is popularly known as Holy shit I overspent again Sunday. It is a sad, sad day. Sunny; high 45, low 28.
Monday 12/2 is a dual holiday: it is both Cyber Monday and the first day of Deer Season in Pennsylvania, for which we have off school, and no, I am not kidding. We really have off for the first day of Deer Season. James Carville famously said, "Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between." We can quibble about whether this statement is unfairly stereotypical or paints Pennsylvanians with too wide a brush. But we have off school for the first day of deer hunting season.
Sunny and colder to start, then clouding up at night. May be some freezing rain and snow overnight, actually. Could impact school schedules for Tuesday 12/3. So stay tuned for updates.
The rest of the first week of December will be cold (highs in the 30s, lows in the teens) and overcast generally. I'm looking at a system that could bring us snow in the Thursday 12/5 - Friday 12/6 range.
Becoming more seasonable thereafter: highs in the 40s, lows in the 20s. Stay tuned for updates...
Update as of Sunday evening: it appears now that the track of the Nor'easter will place the mid-Atlantic region in its path.
However, I expect this system to give us nothing but rain.
We'll get a lot of rain - 2 to 3 inches in some places - but other than a wee bit of mixed wet snow overnight, that's it.
So the most significant threats are from the wind (10-15mph Tuesday night, 15-20mph on Wednesday) and from flooding in some places. The heavy rain is likely to cause some travel woes (the aforementioned piss-poor driving, delayed flights, isolated flash and coastal flooding).
As ever, stay tuned for updates...