Vermont Thanksgiving Weather Looking Pretty Safe. Elsewhere, And In Past Years, Not So Much

It'll be a blustery, but otherwise pretty tame Thanksgiving
in Vermont.  But between Thursday night and Saturday
morning, most of us will see at least a little snow. 
Northern Vermont ski areas could get a good half
a foot of snow. 

It's steady as she goes with the forecast for today's pre-Thanksgiving travel, and the big day tomorrow. The forecast hasn't changed much since yesterday. 

Vermont is solidly in the warm air ahead of a cold front today.  After a showery, rather balmy overnight., it's more of the same today. 

It could rain at any time today, but it'll be off and on.  We'll have intervals of dry-ish weather in between the raindrops. Highs will be up in the 50s, which will be the warmest day in quite awhile. 

Behind the cold front on Thanksgiving, it still looks like it will be blustery. A slot of dry air behind the front will give us some sunshine and fairly mild temperatures through roughly midday, as it looks now.

As the afternoon wears on, clouds should fill in and we'll start getting into some valley rain and mountain snow showers. 

The tricky part of the Thanksgiving travel weekend starts tomorrow night. Snow showers will take over. It'll be a combination of the tail end of lake effects snow off Lake Ontario, some weak weather disturbances in the strong, cold west and northwest winds, and those winds going up and over the Green Mountains to trigger more snow showers. 

Almost all of us except some people in the lower Connecticut River Valley will get at least a little snow.  In most places, snowfall between Thanksgiving night and Saturday morning will come out to a dusting to three inches. 

The three inches will be mostly in northern Vermont. 

Some of the ski areas in central and northern Vermont could get four to as much as eight inches of snow out of this. That'll replace some of the snow that will have melted today. 

The weather will be decidedly less tame over in New York State, near the lakes. Lake effect snows blasting off the lakes could dump 10 to 20 inches of snow in the general area near Watertown and south of Buffalo. 

Winds will be more fierce that in Vermont out that way. Over here in the Green Mountain States, the highest wind gusts will probably top out at around 35 mph. Near the Great Lakes, they could reach as high as 55 mph. 

Lake Erie is also expected to experience something called a seiche. That's when west winds are so strong that it tilts the lake. Water levels will go down on the west end of the lake near ?   but increase near Buffalo, where a lake flood advisory is in effect. 

Later in the weekend, toward Sunday, another storm is scheduled to arrive. There's still some questions as to whether it will be mostly rain, mostly snow or some schmutzy combination. 

WILD WEATHER THANKSGIVINGS

The weather is going pretty easy on us here in Vermont this Thanksgiving, but we've seen some tremendous extremes in past Thanksgiving weekends.

Some examples: 

Frigid Thanksgiving 1938

Thanksgiving fell on November 24 that year. That was the start of some of the most wintry weather on record for November. A storm that dropped a few inches of snow was departing on Thanksgiving. Within two days, it was 3 below in Burlington, which is still the coldest temperature on record for November. 

It was even colder elsewhere. Rutland got down to 10 below. St. Johnsbury was 13 below. 

Snowy Thanksgiving, 1943

Snow was deep on November 25, 1943 across much of Vermont, as a storm on November 22-23 left an impressive layer of winter. Burlington had 11 inches of snow, which is pretty good, but nothing compared to the Northeast Kingdom. 

As the Vermont Weather Book tells us, Bloomfield had 31.5 inches, Newport 29.5 inches, and Northfield, 22.4 inches. 

Great Storm of 1950

The most dramatic Thanksgiving weekend weather in Vermont came in 1950. 

Thanksgiving, 1950 (November 23) was quiet and cold, but Vermont, and the entire eastern third of the U.S. was gearing up for one of the most ferocious and widespread storms on record.

The Great Storm of 1950 killed 353 people in 22 states as the storm created an extreme blizzard in Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, and record-setting winds in the Northeast. The storm caused $66.7 million in damage, which is right around $900 million in 2025 dollars. 

The storm deposited the storm 57 inches of snow in West Virginia and 44 inches in Ohio. 

Here in Vermont and New England, it was the wind. Gusts reached 72 mph in Burlington. The wind was especially destructive in Addison County.  At the time, the Addison Independent said 70 percent of houses between Pittsford and Vergennes had at least some roof damage, with some houses losing almost their entire roofds.

Damage to Addison County farms amounted to $840,000, which is $11.6 million in 2025 dollars, Damage to Middlebury College amounted to $150,000, which is $2 million in today's dollars.

Thanksgiving Snowstorm, 1971

The snowiest actual Thanksgiving Day came on November 25 that year. Twenty inches of snow fell on Mount Mansfield, Waitsfield and Montpelier. Burlington managed 8.6 inches. 

Record Cold Thanksgiving, 2018

Thanksgiving, 2018 was the coldest on record. Burlimgton only got up to 14 degrees that day, November 21. Montpelier only got up to 9 above. 

The next morning, it was minus 1 in Burlington, the earliest subzero temperature on record. That's particularly impressive since climate change was taking hold by then. It's much harder to achieve record lows than it once was.

I hope your Thanksgiving is memorable. And be thankful the holiday this year won't be memorable because of the weather.