Messy travel weather this week

We went through almost the entire month with nothing... no big storms... no heavy precipitation, and now it all comes together for Thanksgiving week. We don't want to turn away the moisture because we certainly need it. But these system will have large impacts on the central Plains.

Storm #1 (Tuesday):

This system will have itself all wrapped up and pushing to the northeast heading into the evening and overnight. It's going to continue to be a beast for Nebraska and the upper Midwest right into Wednesday. A total of 4-8 inches still on the way for northwest Kansas. The amounts will decrease quickly just south of I-70. Watch for road closures with this storm. It's going to be a mess in certain areas.
This is the view Tuesday morning from Fort Collins. That area around and just east of Denver will have totals close to 10"

This system has a ton of wind with it too. So you will want to be bracing for wind gusts of 40-55 mph in many spots heading into Tuesday evening. It's not going to be very pleasant, even for the areas that get zero snow. 

Storm #2 (Thanksgiving Day)

So this particular storm comes up from Baja, CA heading into the holiday itself. It will run into air that is so close to the freezing mark. Just look at the forecast temperatures early Thursday.

If it ends up colder, we may have several slicks areas Thursday morning to deal with, especially in central and northern Kansas. However, the key to the forecast will be the south winds, trying to warm things up during the day. I'm expecting most areas will come back above freezing by early or mid-afternoon, getting us back over to rain/wet roads; not icy. But sometimes the models are too aggressive in warming things up.

Storm #3 (Friday):

The last in a series of weather events comes Friday in the form of widespread rain AND some thunderstorms. Thunder in late November isn't that unheard of (given the right setups) and this storm coming in is fairly intense. Now I don't think we will be faced with severe storms, but conditions will be right for some noisy weather that afternoon.

Forecast rainfall amounts:

On the bright side, we get some good moisture out of these events (and it doesn't all come in 45 minutes). And when you are dry like we are, we can't be picky on when it comes. But melt down the snow from the northwest and add in what we get both Thursday AND Friday and many areas could be right up near an inch. Even if it ends up being just .50", it's going to be quite helpful.