Thanksgiving week travel weather looks good; a little ice up north

It’s the busiest time of year for travel.

Thanksgiving week can bring a wild variety of weather across Minnesota. We’re in the transition zone between fall and winter. That can mean gales of November or something much more tranquil. This week will be much more balmy than brutal.

Dry, sunny skies will be the rule over most of Minnesota through Wednesday. Highs will reach the lower 40s in southern Minnesota Wednesday afternoon, with 30s up north.

A little ice, snow up north going into Thanksgiving Day

Scanning the weather maps the only real chance of wintry precipitation favors northern Minnesota Wednesday night into Thanksgiving morning. Here’s a look at the forecast for northwestern Minnesota this week.

Expect a light mix of snow and ice Wednesday night into Thursday from Hallock in northwestern Minnesota through International Falls, the Iron Range, to the North Shore.

High temperatures on Thanksgiving Day will hover mostly in the 30s across Minnesota.

Milder temperatures and dry skies return for the Thanksgiving weekend. Saturday looks like the warmest day, with highs in the mid-40s in southern Minnesota.

So after the chance for a little snow and ice across all of northern Minnesota Wednesday night into Thursday, the overall travel weather looks good through the upcoming weekend.

Here’s a closer look at Thanksgiving weather climatology from the Minnesota State Climatology Office.

Thanksgiving Day occurs during the transition between autumn and winter, so its weather can be anything from balmy to brutal. So what's the weather usually like?

The "normal" high temperature on Thanksgiving Day, based on 1991-2020 averages, is 32 F in Duluth, 29 F in International Falls, 38 F in Rochester, 34 F at St. Cloud, and 38 F in the Twin Cities. Normal low temperatures are in the teens F across most of Minnesota. Temperatures have been as high as the 60s F in southern Minnesota (and the upper 40s F in northern and northeastern Minnesota), and have been deeply subzero in some years. In 1985, the temperature fell to -34 F at Argyle and -32 F at International Falls, ahead of a huge winter storm taking aim at the region.

Although the Thanksgiving holiday travel period (often considered Wednesday through Sunday) has boasted some legendary winter storms, the snowfall statistics for Thanksgiving itself are not outstanding. The highest Thanksgiving snow on record in Duluth is 8.1 inches, with five inches in the Twin Cities, and 3.7 inches at Rochester.

In the Twin Cities, mild Thanksgiving conditions, with temperatures in the 50s F, have only occurred eleven times in 150 years, or about once every 13 years or so. The most recent very warm Thanksgiving was November 22, 2012, when the temperature hit 60 F, two degrees short of the record high of 62 F observed in 1914 and 1922. Very cold conditions struck most recently in 2014, when the low temperature was -4 F in the Twin Cities, with -20s F in northern Minnesota. Below-zero lows have occurred ten times in the past 148 years.

Historically, about one in three Thanksgivings have at least one inch of snow on the ground in the Twin Cities, and the deepest snow cover measured was 10 inches in both1921 and 1983. By contrast, International Falls has at least an inch of snow cover on Thanksgiving in about seven out of 10 years, with a high of 17 inches in 1955, and 15 inches measured on Thanksgiving as recently as 2010.

It occasionally rains on Thanksgiving Day as well. In 1896, a two-day event in the Twin Cities doused Thanksgiving travelers with nearly three inches of rain.