Millions to hit the roads for Thanksgiving ahead of ‘Arctic’ temperatures on Thursday

Millions of travelers will battle severe weather and congested highways on Tuesday to reach loved ones for Thanksgiving. And according to forecasters, it will be cold for many.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said in an update early Monday that a pair of weather systems were expected to bring an “Arctic outbreak” across the central United States on Wednesday and into Thanksgiving Thursday.

Temperatures in the Northern Great Plains will only reach the high teens and 20s Tuesday and Wednesday, 15-25 degrees lower than the seasonal average. The NWS office for the Twin Cities said Thursday could see lows of zero to 13 degrees Fahrenheit.

In central and southern California, the Great Basin and the Rockies, an atmospheric fluvial event — an airborne flow of moisture that can bring heavy precipitation — brought rain as well as up to three feet of snow in the southern Sierra Nevada.

It will be a wintry Thanksgiving for parts of the Upper Michigan Peninsular and areas below Lake Ontario, with between 4 and 8 inches snow is expected.

From Tuesday at At 7 a.m., airports appeared to be handling the influx of Thanksgiving travelers; there was only one flight cancellation listed across the country Tuesday morning on FlightAware’s Misery Map of airline disruptions with only 55 delays.

Travel hubs also appeared to be coping with a rise in passenger numbers on Monday. “I grew up in Connecticut, so I’ve been through this airport thousands of times and I’ve never seen it so easy to get through customs – no line today,” Father Jeff Couture, a Catholic priest who had just returned from a pilgrimage trip to Portugal, NBC New York told Monday.

Janis and Ken Allen flew to San Francisco from Newark on Monday to visit their daughter – after traveling by train from Philadelphia due to the lack of direct flights from there – and had experienced no delays. They told NBC New York they planned their trip home for Tuesday, Dec. 3, to avoid the post-holiday rush that consumer travel groups, including AAA, have recommended.