Don’t forget to check the local forecast before you hit the road: Snowfall could snarl post-Thanksgiving travel plans across the northern Plains and Midwest, while roughly 9 million people are under freeze warnings in the South.
In the Great Lakes region, a vigorous lake effect snow event is expected to last through the weekend before tapering off early next week. Six million people were under winter alerts Friday from northern Minnesota into upstate New York, where snowfall totals downwind of lakes Erie and Ontario were expected to reach 3 feet or more.
An Arctic airmass is bringing the coldest air since last winter to the Plains and Midwest and into the South and East Coast, according to the National Weather Service. It's forecast to stretch through the weekend and into the week.
Wind chills in the northern Plains and upper Midwest will be below zero Saturday morning, and parts of North Dakota could see wind chills of negative 30 to 40, the weather service said.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency on Friday that went into effect immediately in Allegany, Erie, Cattaraugaus, Chautauqua, Genessee, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Oswego, St. Lawrence and Wyoming counties.
At times, snowfall rates will be blinding, at 3 to 4 inches an hour, and could be accompanied by thundersnow, a rare weather event that combines a snowstorm with thunder and lightning. The highest snow accumulations will be east of Lake Ontario, where some isolated areas could get hit by up to 60 inches of snow around the Watertown, New York, area.
Road travel could be especially difficult on Interstate 90, between Cleveland and Buffalo. The interstate was closed in Pennsylvania late Friday afternoon, between interstate 79 to the New York state line, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, of New York, said during a news conference.
Other possibly affected thoroughfares include Interstate 81, north of Syracuse, New York. The “Sunday Night Football” faceoff between the San Francisco 49ers and the Buffalo Bills could be buried under snow because Highmark Stadium is in Orchard Park, a town that is forecast to pick up between 12 and 18 inches, with higher amounts possible.
The Buffalo Bills posted Friday on X, for their diehard fans, dubbed the "Bills Mafia," to register to shovel snow at the stadium.
Poloncarz said during the media briefing that central and southern Erie County will most likely be hit the hardest, with the majority of the snowfall arriving on Saturday and Sunday. The central regions of the county could see between 2 and 3 feet of snow, while the southern area of the county could see more than 3 feet, Poloncarz said.
Police said wintry weather was the likely cause of a crash along U.S. Route 131 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Thursday night that left people injured. Authorities did not provide a specific number of people hurt in the incident. As many as 15 vehicles were reported to be involved in the collision, police said.
U.S. airports were packed with travelers heading to Thanksgiving destinations between Sunday and Thursday. The Federal Aviation Administration safely moved more than 232,000 flights across the country between those days — a record number for Thanksgiving week. More than 52,000 flights carried passengers to their destinations on Tuesday alone.
Meanwhile, some 9 million people on Friday were under freeze watches and warnings across the South, stretching from Texas to the Carolinas.
Weather forecasters expect the coldest air in the South is yet to come, with an Arctic air mass spilling south out of Canada.
