Snowless Thanksgiving more common than many think

In addition to the tree lighting, the annual Holiday Lights parade is about to get underway in Moorhead. With great weather, big crowds are expected tonight.

It really is nearly ideal out here tonight for the parade and the mild weather should carry over into Thanksgiving. A lot of people tend to think we usually have snow on the ground by Thanksgiving but that actually not the case.

54% of all Thanksgiving Days have had no snow on the ground, and of the ones that have, 2/3 of them have had an inch or less and a storm on Thanksgiving itself is pretty rare.

Daryl Ritchison: “The last time we had a big snow event was back in 1993. We've had some small ones 1/2 and inch, 3/4 of an inch those type of events but a big one, we've really only had 2 since the record started in the 1880's.”

The coldest Thanksgiving was in 1893 when the high was only -10, and the coldest temperature ever was -27 in 1905. The warmest was 55 in 1901 and we may make a run at that this year. Though the record high for this Thursday is 56 in 1984 that year the 24th did not fall on Thanksgiving.

Now last year we had 7 inches of snow on the ground for Thanksgiving, but that is the only 1 out of the last 10 that have had a white Turkey Day.

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