Thanksgiving Nightmare Travel Snowstorm vs. 2013

It goes without saying, if you're planning to travel to the East Coast of the United States Wednesday, don't. On the biggest travel day of the year, with the most travelers since the recession of 2008, a major snowstorm is set to coat roads from North Carolina to Maine, with up to a foot of snow west of the I-95 corridor. Get details and updates in our news story:

So what's different about this year's storm? Didn't this happen last Thanksgiving? Well, yes and no. If you compare the snow accumulation maps from the Thanksgiving 2013 storm and this one, a couple things stand out.

First, this storm is farther east, so it will affect a much larger population area, with more roads and more airports. We're not calling for high accumulations on the I-95 corridor today, but any snow will be a problem for roads, and a slight slip of the forecast could create a travel nightmare in that area. The traffic farther west, feeding I-95, could be in a foot of snow.

Second, this storm is about 12 hours later, which means that travel on Thanksgiving morning could still be dicey, especially if some of these areas get a foot of snow. Do me a favor, travel Tuesday, or tell your family to hold on to the turkey until Friday.

BTW: The Farmer's Almanac has some great info on storms of Thanksgiving past.