National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

 Thanksgiving Day Climatology for the Tri-Cities

   Thanksgiving Day falls on the fourth Thursday of November. This year, Thanksgiving Day is on November 27, though the date of the holiday varies each year, and ranges from November 22nd through the 28th. Historically speaking, Thanksgiving Day weather epitomizes the variability we have come to expect in Nebraska and Kansas. Since 1980, the weather on Thanksgiving Day has varied from bitter cold to balmy and everything in between.  Precipitation on the holiday itself has been sparse the last 28 years, although snow is no stranger to late November weather.

   Generally speaking, normal high temperatures on Thanksgiving range from 41 to 44 degrees, while low temperatures vary from 19 to 24 degrees. Last year, high temperatures were in the 30s and lows were around 15 degrees. Since 1980, there have been two Thanksgiving Days which were bitterly cold. November 25, 1993 was the coldest in that span, as high temperatures ranged from 10 degrees at Kearney to 17 degrees at Hastings. Low temperatures were right at zero degrees. Another cold one was 1985, when temperatures struggled for the teens in the afternoon, after morning low temperatures in the single digits.  In 1983, one of the biggest Thanksgiving weekend storms ever hammered much of the area, and was the welcome mat for the coldest December on record that year.  On the flip side, 1998 was one of the warmest on record as all of the Tri-Cities topped the 70 degree mark. In Grand Island and Hastings, November 27th 1998 was a record breaker.

   Here is a look back at some Thanksgiving Day climatological information for Grand Island, Hastings and Kearney, Nebraska. Normal data is for the period 1971 through 2000.

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This page was composed by the staff at the National Weather Service in Hastings, Nebraska.