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Philadelphia weather: Potential storm could complicate your trip home this Thanksgiving weekend

Winds could gust past 40 mph Thursday, heralding a pattern change. Stormy Sunday possible.

Hotel guests at Embassy Suites along the Ben Franklin Parkway watch as a Mr. Potato Head balloon makes its way toward the Art Museum in the 97th Annual 6abc Dunkiní Donut Thanksgiving Day Parade last year. He might have to hold on tight this year as high winds are expected.
Hotel guests at Embassy Suites along the Ben Franklin Parkway watch as a Mr. Potato Head balloon makes its way toward the Art Museum in the 97th Annual 6abc Dunkiní Donut Thanksgiving Day Parade last year. He might have to hold on tight this year as high winds are expected.Read moreALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer

For those planning to drive out of town Wednesday, fellow motorists are likely to cause bigger headaches than the weather, which doesn’t look bad at all. But a potential storm could complicate the trips home, and gusty winds might be an issue for the Thanksgiving Parade.

Gale-force gusts are possible Thursday during the parade, which begins at 8:30 a.m. at 20th Street and John F. Kennedy Boulevard. In short, it will be tough day to be a parade inflatable.

“Forty to 45 [mph] is almost a given,” said Dave Dombek, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. He said that the wind scenario has been in place since last week, thus arguing against the computer models’ backing off on the forecast.

Dombek said that from the surface up to several thousand feet in the atmosphere, the winds are forecast to be blowing from the same direction — primarily from the west, or across the Parkway more or less from the Schuylkill. “It’s pretty well aligned,” he said.

But no rain is in the forecast for Thursday, and temperatures will be in the tolerable 40s at parade time; parade veterans have endured far worse.

» READ MORE: Photos: Philadelphia’s 2018 Thanksgiving Day parade

And Wednesday, always one of the busiest of the year on the nation’s highways, should be at the very least a half-decent travel day, with just a chance of showers, and temperatures making a run at 60. But winds will pick up during the afternoon.

The warm air will rush north ahead of a storm aiming for the Great Lakes and then turn eastward. After the storm drags a front through the region, winds will pick up as the storm interacts with higher pressure building in from the west.

» READ MORE: 12 Philadelphia restaurants serving Thanksgiving dinner for 2019

Friday and Saturday highs will be in the December-like 40s, and that’s excusable given that Sunday is Dec. 1.

A significant coastal storm could affect the region late Saturday into Monday, with rain mixed with snow at times, although the forecast is likely to undergo multiple changes between now and when the first drops, or flakes, appear.

» READ MORE: What to do in Philly Nov. 22-28: Watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade, light the tree at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, laugh with Marlon Wayans

A pattern in the north Atlantic Ocean that favors cold and storminess is forecast to take hold for several days, and the government’s 8- to 14-day outlook has odds favoring below-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation.

Said Dean Iovino, a lead meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, “Winter’s coming.”