Thanksgiving weather: Cold blast to follow rainy holiday

The rain that fell across the Northeast on Thursday will leave behind a blast of icy air as the storm moves away.

Most of the major cities along I-95 in the Northeast experienced a rain storm, with drizzles impacting both the New York and Philadelphia Thanksgiving parades.

But farther inland got wet snow, which will continue for Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine through Thursday evening before the storm clears out.

The highest snow totals will likely be across the Green and White Mountains, where locally 10 inches is possible.

Winter alerts are posted from northern Pennsylvania into Maine, with the potential for up to a foot of snow in the higher elevations on Thursday.

Timing of the Thanksgiving storm and cold

The rain event is over for cities like Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City.

Rainfall started to gradually taper off by midday in the mid-Atlantic, with Philadelphia likely seeing it end by around noon.

It rained in New York City until about 2 p.m., while Boston will see an end to the rain closer to sunset, around 5 p.m.

Parts of northern New England, especially Maine, will see rain and snow into the overnight hours before conditions improve.

After this storm moves out, the coldest air of the season will be filling in across much of the country.

Due to that cold air passing over the relatively warm water of the Great Lakes, there are numerous lake effect snow warnings and winter storm watches in effect. This is looking like the first significant lake effect snow event of the season.

The forecast calls for 3 to 4 feet of snow through Monday for portions of western New York state.

The heaviest snow bands will likely stay south of Buffalo, but things may get interesting at Sunday night’s 49ers-Bills game with snow nearby.

High temps will be in only the teens for Minneapolis, near the freezing mark in Detroit, and only in the 30s and 40s for the Northeast. The chilly weather will persist into next week.

For the rest of the country, the weather stays quiet this weekend, but it’s a chilly forecast for dozens of states in the eastern half of the country as temperatures start to feel much more in line with the incoming winter season.

In the west, warmer-than-normal temperatures are expected through the first week of December.