Millions of Americans are traveling for Christmas, but severe weather can disrupt their Christmas plans.
Although no major storms are expected, the rain and wintry weather is expected to slow holiday travel, especially in the eastern United States. According to AAA, nearly 120 million people are expected to travel this year, a record number for the Christmas period.
Where are your trouble spots this week?
Watch for severe weather in the western and southern Plains. The Northeast will also experience a brief period of some of the coldest air of the season.
The weather forecast for Christmas Day will be good for most of the central and eastern United States.
Light rain is possible in areas like Atlanta and Chicago, but last-minute travel won't be significantly affected.
The weather will be milder on Wednesday, allowing for smoother travel.
More snow in the Northeast heading into Christmas Eve
Several inches of snow fell in parts of the Northeast over the weekend, with snowflakes reaching the Interstate 95 corridor from Philadelphia through New York to Boston.
This made travel slippery during what was considered the busiest time of the year.
By Saturday morning, about 3 to 6 inches of snow had fallen in eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and eastern Connecticut.
Boston's famous Fenway Park reported 6 inches of snow at the Boston Red Sox shrine, while 5.2 inches of snow fell at Boston's Logan Airport.
This was the city's heaviest snowfall since the January 2022 snowstorm.
Another snow system is expected to move through similar parts of the region into Christmas Eve.
A low-pressure system moving across the Great Lakes into Monday night is bringing light to moderate snow across Wisconsin and Michigan.
Snow will reach parts of the interior Northeast and New England overnight and continue into Tuesday morning.
A winter weather advisory will also be issued for parts of the mid-Atlantic region from Wisconsin to Maine and from West Virginia to New Jersey.
Cities including Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia are under winter weather warnings due to the possibility of freezing rain, sleet, light snow and icy roads Tuesday morning.
On Christmas Eve, the snow and winter combination will rapidly decrease from west to east, so those traveling later in the day won't encounter many problems on the roads.
Relentless rain and mountain snow hitting the west coast
The FOX Prediction Center is tracking a series of storms moving into the West and Northwest throughout this week.
We will typically see a weak to moderate event leading up to Christmas Day, but windy and unstable conditions will continue for a long time after we return home after the holidays.
Moderate to heavy rain could cause a low level risk of flash flooding for parts of the West Coast from San Francisco to Seattle.
More than 6 inches of rain could fall in parts of Northern California and coastal Oregon into Tuesday.
Travelers transiting through Seattle-Tacoma Airport in Seattle and airports in the San Francisco Bay Area may experience delays.
Snow levels generally remain high during this event, so the bulk of the snow is mostly confined to parts of the Cascades, the northern Sierra Nevada, and the northern Rocky Mountains. There seems to be snow at the foot of the mountain.
More heavy rain and mountain snow are likely to occur on Christmas Day, causing travel problems for people heading to and returning from holiday gatherings.
Thunderstorms expected in the south
A developing storm system is expected to begin harnessing moisture from the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, potentially bringing scattered showers and thunderstorms from Texas to southern Missouri.
Rain is likely to continue until at least Christmas Eve, with precipitation totals reaching 2 to 3 inches in the Ark-La-Tex area.
Some thunderstorms range from strong to severe, with gusty winds, cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, and heavy rain posing the greatest threat.
Rainfall of more than 1 inch per hour could lead to isolated flash flooding, but most rain would be welcome news as the region has been in drought for several months.
Warming up for the end of the year
From frigid temperatures to unusually mild temperatures, the FOX Prediction Center is monitoring the year-end warming that will affect hundreds of millions of people as we close out 2024.
Forecast models suggest that a fairly strong and intense Pacific jet stream could develop in the middle of the Pacific Ocean around Christmas. This can have many effects on the weather in the United States.
Typically, this not only causes the air mass in the 48°N region to be warmer than average, but also potentially creates a more active storm track.
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center's long-term temperature and precipitation outlook illustrates this well, with nearly the entire 48 U.S. House of Representatives region above average for the week after Christmas, and parts of the Southwest and South Central U.S. Almost all regions show near-average or above-average precipitation.
Maximum temperatures are expected to rise 10 to 20 degrees above average, meaning more than 200 million people could feel the warmth by early 2025.
