Thanksgiving travel will bring a wintry mix to Ohio

COLUMBUS (WCMH) -- The short week before Thanksgiving are the busiest travel days, and the weather will be bumpy in some parts of the country.

A modest low-pressure area will travel from the mid-Mississippi Valley across the Great Lakes to start the week, bringing showers and mild weather.

A trailing cold front crossing Ohio Monday night will cause readings to fall back into the chilly low 40s on Tuesday. The Eastern Seaboard will be dealing with widespread rain much of the day that will impact air travel.

Ohio travelers will have dry roads Tuesday and much of Wednesday, before the last in a series of Pacific storms takes a southerly path across the southern Plains to the Ohio Valley region. Heavy snow will blanket the central Rockies, including the Denver area, while rain develops over the Midwest and Mid-South.

Rain will break out over Indiana and western Kentucky Wednesday afternoon, mostly staying west of the Interstate 75 in Ohio until sunset. A band of wet snow will develop on the northern edge of the precipitation shield that will overspread northern parts of the Buckeye State.

The eventual storm track on Thanksgiving morning will determine where the rain-snow line will sets up, likely near or northwest Interstates 70/71. Some accumulating snow will likely fall over northern portions of Ohio, with several inches, while the southern half of Ohio deals with mainly rain and wet roads on the holiday.

A wintry mix will diminish later on Thanksgiving, before a surge of arctic air is pulled southward Friday behind the departing storm, resulting in windy and cold weather for holiday shopping, along with lake-effect snow showers. Frigid conditions are expected during the OSU-Xichigan game Saturday, when temperatures will hover in the 20s, just touching 30 in the mid-afternoon.

Thanksgiving Snowfall

In 140 years of Columbus weather records, measurable snow has fallen a dozen times on Thanksgiving Day. The last time a dusting occurred was on Nov. 27, 2014. The previous year was an actual white Thanksgiving after 3.5 inches of snow fell on the two travel days leading up to Thanksgiving (Nov. 28, 2013).

The greatest snowfall came on Nov. 23, 1950, when Columbus received 1.1 inches of snow. This was only a precursor to the infamous "Blizzard Bowl" game on Nov. 25, when Michigan edged Ohio State 9-3 in a raging snowstorm. By the end of the month, a November record snowfall of 15.2 inches piled up in the city, and two to three feet in eastern Ohio.