Let’s start to look toward the weather around Thanksgiving. I will give you info as far out as what I feel is accurate, and with what I’m comfortable with on certainty.
Before we start- don’t get too concerned just yet if you see social media posts about a “huge storm” on Thanksgiving.
That leads me to my first point to you- Up to Wednesday looks like we can make a useful forecast. Then the weather pattern change starts like a switch being flipped on Thanksgiving. This doesn’t mean here in Michigan we go to a crazy storm. It just means the whole weather pattern over the U.S. starts a change on Thanksgiving, and throws in a lot of uncertainty. By this Thursday that uncertainty may be straightened out.
It looks fairly mild next Tuesday and Wednesday. For travel worries, one of your best things is if I mention mild temperatures. It’s very hard to have major travel problems with temperatures well above freezing.
Here are three surface maps of the most accurate model output now.
Monday will have just a few spotty, light rain showers and no travel issues. Looking across our country, travel issues should be limited to around Dallas and central Texas for rain and maybe Seattle.
Surface weather forecast at 7 a.m. Monday, November 24, from the Ensemble of the European Centre Medium Range Weather Forecast Model (ECMWF)NOAA
Tuesday should be a dry day around the Great Lakes and likely a great day to travel. Travel issues in the U.S. would be confined to Texas again and maybe Boston northeast into Maine.
Surface weather forecast at 7 a.m. Tuesday, November 25, from the Ensemble of the European Centre Medium Range Weather Forecast Model (ECMWF)NOAA
Wednesday will likely have the components of the Thanksgiving and after-Thanksgiving weather change. There looks to be a storm system with mild temperatures and rain heading toward Michigan. In this scenario we may turn wet on Wednesday, with the cold air holding off until Thanksgiving.
Surface weather forecast at 7 a.m. Wednesday, November 26, from the Ensemble of the European Centre Medium Range Weather Forecast Model (ECMWF)NOAA
But remember- with the changes coming around Thanksgiving, Wednesday is as far as we can go with the confidence needed to not give you unwarranted weather worry.
The best thing to show you is the projected high temperature forecast for the day before Thanksgiving. Afternoon temperatures should be at least 40 degrees to well into the 40s.
High temperature forecast for Wednesday, November 26, 2025.NOAA
We don’t have icy, slick roads with temperatures in the 40s.
What about Thanksgiving and after? It does look colder, which should make some lake-effect snow. The weather pattern is doing so much right around then that honestly it’s hard to say with confidence if it’s a limited lake-effect snow or a full-fledged storm system.
Watch for updates and continual tweaking as we progress each day into the holiday by bookmarking mlive.com/weather.
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