Thanksgiving Weather by Region: the Travel Odds for 25 US Hubs
A record 81.8 million Americans were set to travel for Thanksgiving last year, and the thing most likely to slow them down wasn't a blizzard. It was rain in the Pacific Northwest. Here's what 30 years of NOAA data say Thanksgiving week actually looks like at the airports and cities you'll pass through.
The hardest Thanksgiving travel weather in America isn't snow — it's rain, and it lives in the Pacific Northwest. We pulled every Thanksgiving week (November 22–28) since 1995 at the main airport in 25 major travel hubs. Portland sees measurable precipitation on 62% of Thanksgiving-week days and Seattle on 60% — the wettest hubs in the country by a wide margin. The snow-delay risk is real but narrower: it's concentrated in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, where Minneapolis and Detroit see measurable snow on about 15% of those days. And if you're flying through the Sun Belt, relax — Las Vegas and Phoenix are wet roughly one day in twenty.
That matters because the busiest travel days and the worst weather don't line up the way people assume. The table ranks all 25 hubs by how often it rains or snows that week — the single best proxy for a delay — alongside how cold it typically gets. Read it as a travel map, not a forecast: no one can tell you what November 26, 2026 will do, but 30 years of records tell you what to pack and which connection to sweat.
Thanksgiving-Week Travel Hubs, Ranked Wettest to Driest
Average daily high and low, and the share of Thanksgiving-week days (Nov 22–28) with measurable precipitation and with measurable snow, at each hub's primary airport station, 1995–2024. “Wet” is any measurable precip — rain, snow or mix — so it's the cleanest single stand-in for travel-delay risk.
| Travel hub | Avg high | Avg low | Wet days | Snow days | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portland, OR (PDX)Portland Intl | 50.3° | 38.5° | 62% | 0% | Pacific Northwest |
| Seattle, WA (SEA)Seattle-Tacoma Intl | 48.5° | 38.3° | 60% | 1% | Pacific Northwest |
| Detroit, MI (DTW)Detroit Metro | 44.6° | 30.7° | 43% | 15% | Great Lakes |
| Boston, MA (BOS)Boston Logan | 48.6° | 35.1° | 37% | 3% | Northeast |
| New York, NY (LGA)LaGuardia | 51.7° | 40.2° | 33% | 1% | Northeast |
| Nashville, TN (BNA)Nashville Intl | 57.7° | 36.2° | 32% | 1% | Mid-South |
| Philadelphia, PA (PHL)Phila Intl | 52.8° | 36.9° | 32% | 0% | Northeast |
| Chicago, IL (ORD)O'Hare Intl | 44.4° | 29.4° | 31% | 8% | Great Lakes |
| Houston, TX (IAH)Bush Intercontinental | 70.2° | 48.5° | 30% | 0% | Gulf Coast |
| Washington, DC (DCA)Reagan National | 54.7° | 38.7° | 30% | 0% | Mid-Atlantic |
| St. Louis, MO (STL)Lambert Intl | 52.5° | 34.5° | 30% | 3% | Midwest |
| Charlotte, NC (CLT)Charlotte Douglas | 60.7° | 37.0° | 29% | 0% | Southeast |
| Minneapolis, MN (MSP)MSP Intl | 37.8° | 22.9° | 27% | 16% | Upper Midwest |
| Atlanta, GA (ATL)Hartsfield-Jackson | 61.7° | 41.7° | 26% | 1% | Southeast |
| San Francisco, CA (SFO)SFO Intl | 61.2° | 47.5° | 25% | 0% | West Coast |
| Salt Lake City, UT (SLC)SLC Intl | 46.4° | 28.6° | 25% | 15% | Mountain West |
| Miami, FL (MIA)Miami Intl | 80.5° | 66.4° | 23% | 0% | South Florida |
| Dallas, TX (DFW)DFW | 64.7° | 43.7° | 21% | 0% | South |
| Tampa, FL (TPA)Tampa Intl | 76.3° | 58.3° | 19% | 0% | South Florida |
| Kansas City, MO (MCI)KC Intl | 50.7° | 30.8° | 19% | 3% | Plains |
| Orlando, FL (MCO)Orlando Intl | 76.7° | 56.2° | 18% | 0% | South Florida |
| Denver, CO (DEN)Denver Intl | 50.6° | 23.3° | 17% | 11% | Mountain West |
| Los Angeles, CA (LAX)LAX | 69.4° | 51.9° | 10% | 0% | West Coast |
| Phoenix, AZ (PHX)Sky Harbor | 73.1° | 50.5° | 6% | 0% | Southwest |
| Las Vegas, NV (LAS)Harry Reid Intl | 63.0° | 43.5° | 5% | 0% | Southwest |
Temperatures and precipitation are NOAA GHCN-Daily, measured at each hub's main airport ASOS. Each figure averages the seven days of Thanksgiving week across 30 years (about 210 station-days per hub; Denver uses Denver International, open since 1995, so 203). You can pull the daily record for any date at these cities on our city pages, e.g. Chicago or Seattle.
Region by Region: What Thanksgiving Usually Brings
The Pacific Northwest is mild but relentlessly damp. Portland and Seattle both sit near a 49–50°F high, so you're not fighting cold — you're fighting drizzle, low clouds and the fog that snarls morning departures. This is the one region where “will it rain?” is answered yes more often than no.
The Great Lakes and Upper Midwest are the snow story. Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis combine cold afternoons (Minneapolis barely clears freezing, at a 37.8°F average high) with the season's first reliable snow chances. Minneapolis and Detroit hit measurable snow on roughly 1 in 6 Thanksgiving-week days — not a lot in absolute terms, but enough that a holiday-weekend clipper can turn a hub connection into an overnight.
The Northeast corridor — Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington — runs cool and about one-third wet, almost all of it rain. Snow is rare this early (Boston leads the corridor at just 3% of days). The real risk here is a coastal storm swinging up I-95 on the Wednesday-before or Sunday-after crush.
The Mountain West is the sneaky-cold column. Denver and Salt Lake City have mild-ish afternoons but brutal nights — Denver averages a 23°F low — and real snow odds (Salt Lake 15%, Denver 11%). Early-season snow in the passes is a driving risk more than a flying one.
The South and Sun Belt fly easy. Dallas, Atlanta, Houston and Charlotte are mild and only occasionally wet; Florida is warm (Miami near 80°F); and the desert Southwest is the driest on the board. If you have a choice of connection the weekend before Thanksgiving, route through Phoenix, Dallas or Charlotte before you route through Seattle or Detroit.
The Real Thanksgiving Travel Threat Isn't Snow
Thanksgiving gets filed in people's heads next to a snowy Currier & Ives print, but late November is too early for most of the country to be reliably white. Across our 25 hubs, only five see measurable snow on even 10% of Thanksgiving-week days — and all five are in the northern interior.
| Snow-delay belt | Days with snow |
|---|---|
| Minneapolis, MN (MSP) | 16% |
| Detroit, MI (DTW) | 15% |
| Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) | 15% |
| Denver, CO (DEN) | 11% |
| Chicago, IL (ORD) | 8% |
Rain is the quieter, bigger problem, because it's everywhere and because it coincides with the crush. AAA projected a record 81.8 million travelers over Thanksgiving 2025, with nearly 90% of them driving and the Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons before the holiday the most congested. A wet Wednesday in a hub like Seattle, Detroit or Chicago doesn't need to be dramatic to matter — put steady rain or a dusting of snow on top of the single busiest road-and-air day of the year and small delays cascade. If you can move your departure to Thanksgiving Day itself, which AAA flags as the lightest travel day, the weather odds barely change but the crowds collapse.
Is Thanksgiving Getting Warmer?
Gradually, yes — late November has warmed along with the rest of the US cold season, which is part of why early-season snow at the northern hubs is a little less of a sure thing than your grandparents remember. We keep the city-by-city numbers on that out of this page so we don't bury the travel table, but if you want the warming signal in detail, see which cities' winters are warming fastest and how summers have warmed since 1990. The practical upshot for Thanksgiving: don't assume a white holiday even in the snow belt — plan for cold rain or a rain-snow mix as the more likely disruptor.
Will It Snow Where You Are?
If snow specifically is what you're chasing (or dreading), this travel-odds view only scratches it — we ranked all 50 major US cities by how often measurable snow actually falls on Thanksgiving Day itself in our companion piece, how often it snows on Thanksgiving, by city. For the next holiday on the calendar, we did the same math for December 25 in white Christmas odds by city, and if you just want to know when the first flakes typically arrive at your hub, see when it starts snowing, by city. The coldest Thanksgiving hubs here — Minneapolis, Detroit, Chicago — also top our list of the coldest cities in America.
Check Your Own Thanksgiving
Want to know what the weather actually did on a past Thanksgiving where you're headed? Use our weather-on-this-day lookup to pull the high, low and precipitation for any date and city back to 1970 — punch in last year's Thanksgiving at your destination and see how the odds in the table played out. If this year hands your hub something memorable, tell us; the busts are the fun part. Everything here ties back to our US weather records hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the weather usually like on Thanksgiving?
It depends almost entirely on your region. Across 1995–2024, the northern tier is cold and gray — Minneapolis averages a 37.8°F high over Thanksgiving week and Chicago 44°F — while the Sun Belt is mild and dry, with Phoenix near 73°F and Miami near 80°F. The most common travel hassle nationwide is rain, not snow: the Pacific Northwest sees measurable precipitation on about 6 of every 10 Thanksgiving-week days.
Where is the worst Thanksgiving travel weather?
By the odds, the Pacific Northwest. In our NOAA data for 1995–2024, Portland saw measurable precipitation on 62% of Thanksgiving-week days and Seattle 60% — the highest of any major US hub. For snow specifically, the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes lead: Minneapolis and Detroit each saw measurable snow on about 15% of Thanksgiving-week days. The Sun Belt is easiest — Las Vegas and Phoenix are wet only about 1 day in 20.
Does it usually snow on Thanksgiving?
For most of the country, no. Measurable snow falls on only a small share of Thanksgiving-week days even in the North — about 16% in Minneapolis, 15% in Detroit and Salt Lake City, 11% in Denver and 8% in Chicago. Coastal and Southern hubs almost never see it. For the full city-by-city snow breakdown, see our dedicated snow-on-Thanksgiving ranking.
What is the coldest major hub at Thanksgiving?
Minneapolis. Over Thanksgiving week 1995–2024 it averaged a 37.8°F high and a 22.9°F low — the coldest of the 25 hubs we measured on both counts, and the one most likely to combine cold with snow. Denver’s nights run nearly as cold (a 23.3°F average low) despite much milder afternoons, thanks to its elevation.
Sources & Method
Temperature and precipitation: NOAA GHCN-Daily via our database. For each hub we took the primary airport station and averaged, over the seven days of Thanksgiving week (November 22–28) across 1995–2024, the daily high and low (converted from tenths of °F) and the share of days recording measurable precipitation (≥ 0.01 in) and measurable snow (≥ 0.1 in). Days flagged as bad readings for the relevant element are excluded. This is a single-station airport climatology, not a full metro average. Travel-volume figures are from the AAA 2025 Thanksgiving travel forecast. See our data sources & methodology page. Data verified October 19, 2026.