Thanksgiving forecast: Where the snow, rain is headed this holiday week
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Snow is headed to the Midwest and the West ahead of Thanksgiving, while rain will target the East Coast on Thanksgiving Day.
Here’s your weather forecast for the holiday week:
Monday
Snow is headed to Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on Monday, while rain is possible from Chicago to Detroit to Indianapolis.
In the West, lots of snow will accumulate in the California mountains. Parts of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range below the snow line could see 4 to 8 inches of rain through Monday night.
Throughout the South, temperatures will be above average — in the 70s or 80s — on Monday.
Tuesday
Rain is headed to the Northeast on Tuesday, potentially causing flight delays during this busy travel week.
In the West, snow will continue in the Sierra Nevadas and will target the Rockies.
Rain showers are possible from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area.
Wednesday
The Midwest, including Chicago, will see a mix of rain and snow on Wednesday.
In the West, snow totals will reach 3 to 5 feet for parts of the southern Sierra Nevadas in California. Up to 7 feet of snow is possible at the highest elevations.
The Rocky Mountains in Colorado are forecast to get 1 to 3 feet of snow. Wind gusts may reach 35 to 50 mph.
Temperatures on Wednesday will return to potentially record-breaking highs for Houston and Austin, Texas, with highs in the mid-80s.
Thanksgiving
A storm is expected to bring rain to most of the East Coast on Thanksgiving.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City will be rainy and chilly, with temperatures in the 40s.
Snow is possible in upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and northern Maine.
Temperatures will be average or below average for most of the country on Thanksgiving. But temperatures will be above average for Phoenix; New Orleans; Jacksonville, Florida; and Raleigh, North Carolina.
(ATLANTA, Ga.) — The Georgia Court of Appeals has disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from her prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump and his co-defendants in their election interference case.
“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the court ruled.
The indictment against Trump and his co-defendants still stands, the court said.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last year to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
Defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Scott Hall subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Thursday’s ruling leaves the question of who takes over the case — and whether it continues — to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia. That decision may be delayed if Trump or Willis continues their appeal to the state’s highest court, Georgia’s Supreme Court.
The case has been on pause after Trump and his co-defendants launched an effort to have Willis disqualified from the case over her relationship with fellow prosecutor Nathan Wade. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee declined to disqualify Willis, leading Trump to appeal that decision.
The appeals court ruled to disqualify Willis and her entire office from the case because “no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the ruling said.
“The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring,” the order said, reversing Judge McAfee’s original decision.
Wade, who had been the lead prosecutor in the case, resigned as special prosecutor in March after McAfee issued his ruling that either Willis or Wade must step aside from the case due to a “significant appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship between the DA and the prosecutor.
While the appeals court disqualified Willis and her office, it did not find enough evidence to justify “the extreme sanction” of tossing the entire indictment against Trump and his co-defendants, as Trump had sought in his appeal.
“While this is the rare case in which DA Willis and her office must be disqualified due to a significant appearance of impropriety, we cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment under the appropriate standard,” the ruling said.
Judge Clay Land — one of the three judges on the appeals panel — dissented from the decision, arguing that reversing the trial court “violates well-established precedent, threatens the discretion given to trial courts, and blurs the distinction between our respective courts.”
Land argued that the appearance of impropriety — rather than a true conflict of interest — is not enough to reverse Judge McAfee’s decision not to disqualify Willis.
“For at least the last 43 years, our appellate courts have held that an appearance of impropriety, without an actual conflict of interest or actual impropriety, provides no basis for the reversal of a trial court’s denial of a motion to disqualify,” he wrote.
In his dissent, Land emphasized that the trial court found that Willis did not have a conflict of interest and rejected the allegations of impropriety stemming from her relationship with Wade, including the allegation that she received a financial benefit from his hiring.
“It was certainly critical of her choices and chastised her for making them. I take no issue with that criticism, and if the trial court had chosen, in its discretion, to disqualify her and her office, this would be a different case,” he wrote. “But that is not the remedy the trial court chose, and I believe our case law prohibits us from rejecting that remedy just because we don’t like it or just because we might have gone further had we been the trial judge.”
Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(TALLAHASSEE, FL.) — Storm surge is a major threat from Hurricane Milton, which is set to make landfall on Florida’s west coast as a Category 4 hurricane Wednesday night.
A dangerous, record-breaking storm surge of up to 12 feet is expected for Tampa Bay and Fort Myers. Storm surge could reach a life-threatening 15 feet near Sarasota.
Here is how storm surge works and why it’s so dangerous:
When pressure falls in the center of the hurricane, water levels rise, and the water amasses while the storm is still over the open ocean.
As the hurricane nears the shore, strong winds push that amassed water toward the coast and onto land.
This can build walls of water — potentially as tall as 20 feet or more — which can quickly overpower walls and flood homes.
In 2005, during Hurricane Katrina, at least 1,500 people died “directly, or indirectly, as a result of storm surge,” according to the National Hurricane Center.
The risks can be even greater if storm surge combines with high tide, which could quickly create a catastrophic rise in water levels.
(NEW YORK) — An American Airlines flight had to “perform an expedited climb” in order to avoid a mountain during a routine departure out of Hawaii on Wednesday.
The plane had just departed from Honolulu International Airport and was on its way to Los Angeles International Airport.
Air traffic control can be heard telling the pilot “turn right and expedite your climb through terrain” on audio from the flight provided by LIVEATC.NET.
According to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration, “An air traffic controller instructed American Airlines Flight 298 to perform an expedited climb after the crew did not make the assigned turn while departing from Honolulu International Airport.”
The FAA’s statement continued, “The controller’s actions ensured the aircraft remained safely above nearby terrain.”
“The safety of our customers and team members is our top priority,” American Airlines said in a statement.
“During the climb out of Honolulu on November 13, the crew of American Airlines flight 298 requested and received right-turn clearance and complied with controller instructions. There was no Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS) alert as there were no issues with terrain clearance based on the trajectory of the aircraft,” the statement continued.
The incident occurred around 1 a.m. local time on Wednesday.
