Thanksgiving Week 2019: A cornucopia of storms

Thanksgiving week 2019 will go down as a stormy week -- and quite possibly the worst travel week since I began blogging in 2005. The middle of the week featured a bomb cyclone hitting the West Coast, bringing record low pressure readings Tuesday night, high winds and heavy snow Wednesday to northern California, then hail, lightning and heavy snow to southern California on Thanksgiving. It was later determined to have brought 43- to 77-foot waves offshore.

Bomb Cyclone hits the West Coast Tuesday Night

At the same time, another big storm was knocking down trees in the Midwest and East. Hundreds of thousands of customers nationwide -- as many as 375,000 at its peak (roughly 1 million people) were without power Wednesday, with over 200,000 lingering into Thursday. Mount Washington, NH had 7 foot snow drifts.

Black Friday was unusually cold in the north, with a huge storm system in the middle of the country. Tuesday scared travelers with severe weather -- 9 tornado reports in Louisiana and Mississippi, then another threat followed Saturday. Here's what the forecast looked like at the beginning of the weekend that followed the Holiday:

To top it off, a nor'easter brought ice to the mid-Atlantic and feet of snow fell in New England, snarling Holiday traffic, from Sunday to Tuesday.

Here are links to my previous blogs about past Thanksgiving weather:

Thanksgiving Weather 2005-2020

Thanksgiving weather in State College, PA 2005-2019

For the record, here are photos I've taken of the weather on Instagram on Thanksgiving Days past (or thereabouts, since I've been on the 'gram):

And here are webcam shots of my yard for the last 7 years showing the weather on Thanksgiving Day (I have more archives I'll have to find to see if I can take it back closer to 2005, when I started blogging for AccuWeather).

The weather conditions from my back yard here in State College, PA, on Thanksgiving Day 2014-2019. In 2013 and 2005 (not shown) we had snow on the ground.

Here is a list of my blogs about Thanksgiving Weather since I started blogging for AccuWeather in 2005:

Thanksgiving Weather 2005-2020