Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Today in 2011 marks the 390th anniversary of celebrating Thanksgiving here in the United States. This Thanksgiving has started out to be a fantastic day to celebrate around the United States, but it hasn't always been that way. One memorable Thanksgiving event was all the way back in 1898 on November 26. There were two strong low pressure systems that combined and created a terrible winter storm in the New England region. The amount of snow that accumulated isn't well known, but the death tragedy was high in numbers. A completely opposite event occured in 1922 on November 25th and 26th where there was a tornado outbreak in the southern U.S. known as the Late-November 1926 Tornado Outbreak. There were an estimated 47 tornadoes reported that caused devastating damage and changed the lives of thousands of people as some perished and some were injured. In 1950, the eastern U.S. experienced one of the worst winter storms in history on November 24th and 25th. Some places received as much snow as 30 inches with winds gusting over 100 mph! On the other side of the U.S. in 1983 there was a damaging windstorm that spand from November 10th to the 24th. Wind gusts as high as 63 mph in some areas and downed power lines and trees causing widespread power outage for Thanksgiving in the Pacific Northwest part of the U.S. The next day on the 25th in the same year a memorable storm produced more than 20 inches of snow in Colorado and began an unusual and unique stretch of day to day snow until January 27th, 1984. In 1993, Texas experienced an unforgetable Thanksgiving Day not primarily because of the type of weather, but because of a sports event. The Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins played at the Texas Stadium with below freezing temperatures and sleet. Due to a slip of a Cowboys player the Dolphins claimed victor for the game. In 1994, a tornado outbreak sparked the day after Thanksgiving on November 27th when 19 tornadoes occured in the Southeastern portion of the United States known as 1994 Thanksgiving Weekend Tornado Outbreak. The strongest tornado was an F3, unfortunately 6 people lost their lives. On a brighter note, that is all that lost their lives on that day. Another post-Thanksgiving tornado outbreak was the Arkansas-Mississippi-Alabama Tornado Outbreak when 67 tornadoes spawned in the 3 states that resulted in some loss of life with the strongest being three F4 tornadoes. In 2005, the 'Blizzard of 2005" tracked as much as 20 inches of snow and 2 inches of ice in certain places in South Dakota and Minnesota. No loss of life, but tens of thousands of people were left without power on Thanksgiving. To finish up the list is a pre-Thanksgiving weather event that caused coastal flooding and damaging winds to people in the New England region. At the same time, some of the earliest recorded snow along the Atlantic coast of Georgia and South Carolina.
These are only some of the memorable weather events that could be found without deep research. Since Thanksgiving has been celebrated for almost 400 years it's hard to keep track of every event that occured. One thing is for sure though. The weather that was experience on the first day Thanksgiving was celebrated is nearly impecable to what it looks like now in the U.S. When the English settlers and Wampanoag Indians gathered for Thanksgiving they enjoyed 3 straight days of nice weather which was perfect since their Thanksgiving feast lasted that long. Look at the current radar for the entire United States.
Besides parts of California, Western Washington, and a some patches of snow in Oregon, Idaho, and Montana and spoty showers in Southern Florida this could look fairly identical to what was experienced 390 years ago. Expect most of the places with no precipitation around them today to persist for almost 3 days. Happy Thanksgiving!!
If you would like to look at some of these events in more detail visit this website.
http://www.earthgauge.net/wp-content/EG_Thanksgiving%20Weather.pdf
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