I don’t imagine it’s too early to talk about Thanksgiving, is it? I mean, after all it is almost 9 days away. I am very excited to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family after two years of not celebrating it at all. South Africans are very gracious, thankful people, but for obvious reasons the Thanksgiving holiday isn’t really a priority for them 😉 In fact, Thanksgiving 2010 was spent in 115 degree weather with a horrible stomach flu. There’s a really funny story surrounding that experience, but now is not the time or place…

ANYWAY, with the holidays quickly approaching many of you are eager for some travel plans. “What will the mountain passes look like?” “Will we have to roast our turkey on an open fire because of an approaching windstorm that will knock out power to hundreds of thousands?” Whatever your questions may be, I have answers! Well, tentative answers 🙂

I would probably venture to guess most of you haven’t exactly needed a meteorologist (or aspiring meteorologist!) to give you the latest forecast. I mean, let’s be honest here: it’s November in western Washington! And with no significant windstorms or arctic outbreaks in our record books so far, many of you have either been happily or miserably bored.

What if I told you Thanksgiving Day will more than likely be rainy with highs in the mid to upper 40s? While the lowlands will be putting windshield wipers to work, those traveling over the mountain passes will have to put their snow chains to work! Periods of snow, heavy at times, will continue to fall in the Cascades between now and the Thanksgiving break. Temperatures will be fairly close to freezing, however, so most of what you encounter on the roadways, if you must travel to higher elevations, will be slush.

And then the trusty long range forecast! I’ll try to contain my enthusiasm, but let’s just say things look to be getting fairly chilly and moist towards the beginning of December. This is actually the first time this season I’ve seen any potential for lowland snow in the long range forecast, so if you happen to love a snowy scene right before Christmas, it may be coming!

In the meantime, try to make the best of the rain! It could always be worse 🙂

Have a great day everyone,

Matthew Leach

Forecasting Kitsap

E-mail: forecastingkitsap@live.com