Weather In-Depth: A visit with Thanksgivings past, present and future

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — We know we can get any kind of wild weather this time of the year, and that’s what will make it interesting for us to forecast the weather through the month of November. The way I think of this is as we go into Thanksgiving day the weather provides us with a “helping of this” and a “serving of that.”

Last year we had a high temperature of 55 degrees. However, in 2018, the high was only 19 degrees, and obviously, it was brutally cold that year. So it can be an amazing range of weather.

To see the highest temperature ever recorded you have got to go back more than 100 years ago. That was almost 70 degrees. The coldest was a morning low temperature at 7 degrees and it happened in that year, 2018, when we had the brutally cold weather. Snowfall was very interesting too. The snowiest on record is only about 5 inches and that was going back to 1985. I thought we might have more snow than that for the record. We know where there is a big concern for travelers due to being one of the busiest times of the year.

How about some of the airports? Right here in Rochester, we have light winds and calm conditions. We concentrated on the busy airports with connecting flights like LaGuardia to Chicago, down to Washington-Dulles. At least right now, they’re in pretty good shape. The weather is really not an issue at least through the eastern half of the country. But it is a different perspective when you look at the travel forecast delays in the Midwest. This is where the weather gets a little more active with rain showers and gusty winds which could be causing a couple of delays.

Now watch as we take you through the week and into the weekend. You will notice that by Friday we see some delays from Rochester across northern New England. Maybe a lot of wind and some rain and some wet snow showers returning for us. We know we are transitioning back to some very cold conditions, snowy conditions by Friday.

But if you’re staying close to home, I guess it is looking pretty good here for the holiday. Sure, we will lose some of the sunshine and it is going to be cloudy with a couple of rain showers. In fact, the temperature will be near 50°.