Ahead of Thursday’s “arctic” temperatures, millions of people will take to the streets for Thanksgiving

On Tuesday, millions of travelers will have to battle storms and congested highways to reach their loved ones for Thanksgiving. And according to forecasters, it will be cold for many.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said in an update early Monday that two weather systems were expected to trigger an “Arctic outbreak” across the central United States on Wednesday and into Thanksgiving Thursday.

Temperatures in the northern Great Plains will reach the high teens and 20s only on Tuesday and Wednesday, 15 to 25 degrees below the seasonal average. The NWS office for the Twin Cities said there could be low temperatures of zero to 13 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday.

Across central and southern California, the Great Basin and the Rocky Mountains, an atmospheric river event – a flow of moisture in the air that can bring heavy precipitation – was expected to bring rain and up to three feet of snow in the southern Sierra Nevada.

It will be a winter Thanksgiving for parts of the upper Michigan Peninsula and areas downwind of Lake Ontario with 4 to 8 inches Snow expected.

As of 7 a.m. Tuesday, airports appeared to be able to handle the influx of Thanksgiving travelers; FlightAware’s Misery Map of Airline Disruption listed just one flight cancellation nationwide as of Tuesday morning, with just 55 delays.

Travel hubs also appeared to be coping with an increase in passenger numbers on Monday. “I grew up in Connecticut, so I’ve flown through this airport thousands of times and have never seen it so easy to get through customs – today there’s no line,” says Father Jeff Couture, a Catholic priest who just returned from one The pilgrimage was a trip to Portugal, NBC New York said on Monday.

Janis and Ken Allen flew from Newark to San Francisco on Monday to visit their daughter – they had traveled by train from Philadelphia because there were no direct flights there – and had experienced no delays. They told NBC New York that they had planned their return trip for Tuesday, December 3, to avoid the post-holiday rush, as consumer travel groups including AAA had recommended.