BETHLEHEM, Pa. — There’s a wet weekly outlook heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, with forecasters highlighting two chances for rain.
Round 1 will arrive on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service, with Round 2 set to arrive Thanksgiving Day.
TWO chances for rain this week with Round 1 coming Tuesday and Round 2 arriving for Thanksgiving Day. The good news is that the busy travel day on Wednesday will be mostly dry in the morning with rain arriving overnight. Colder air will then arrive by Friday and into the weekend! pic.twitter.com/JZPjT9khb1
— NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) November 25, 2024
But the good news is that guidance “continues to trend toward a warmer solution for Thursday’s storm,” the latest NWS forecast discussion said.
That means most of the region — outside the Pocono Plateau and areas north — will avoid snow during the holiday rush.
Expectations for Tuesday
After a mild start to the week, a system over the Great Lakes is expected to influence our weather as things take a soggy turn.
The system “will track into southern Quebec and its associated fronts will move across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic Tuesday,” the weather service said.
The bulk of the rain should come in the morning hours, with rainfall amounts up to a quarter of an inch possible.
But with the rain also will come a drop in temperatures.
After highs in the mid- to upper-50s during the day, a cooler air mass will move in Tuesday night with overnight lows in the upper 20s to low 30s.
Wednesday will be a dry day, forecasters say, with temperatures near normal before our next storm system moves in.
Thanksgiving, Black Friday
EPAWA meteorologist Bobby Martrich said it’s “pretty clear” Thursday’s system will “primarily be a rain event” for the region after models went back and forth over the past several days.
Martrich said far northern areas north of Interstate 80 — nearing the Pennsylvania/New York border — could start off as snow Wednesday night.
“This would be late Wednesday night into Thanksgiving Day morning,” Martrich said in his latest video update.
Elsewhere, rain is expected to overspread the area and run straight through Thanksgiving Day, bringing a half-inch of precipitation or more.
“Following this [system] as it exits, we’re going to be breezy,” Martrich said, describing the winds as “cold air advection-related gusts.”
“We’re going to have definitely some of the coldest temperatures we’ve had this entire season moving in,” Martrich said.
Highs will be stuck in the 40s on Friday and the 30s for the weekend, with those temperatures locking in almost straight through the following week.
We can expect overnight lows falling into the 20s and perhaps even into the teens in some areas, according to long-term forecasts.
Outlooks from the Climate Prediction Center are near-certain temperatures will be well below average through the first week of December, and perhaps beyond.
