Bolaris: Near record cold on way, and the Thanksgiving forecast

Yes, today's rain will make it a lousy day. But at least it will be relatively mild. Because when the precipitation moves away during the night, the coldest air mass of the season since last year will plunge into the Philadelphia region.

The painfully cold northwest winds should whip in by late tonight. We'll be in its full, icy grip during Tuesday. Look for close to record cold temperatures come Tuesday morning as weathersavior.com forecasts a low of 21. The record low is 20 degrees set in 1936. The Lehigh Valley and Poconos have the best chance of reaching the record.

Making it even more unbearable: A fierce northwest wind will at times gust close to 40mph, producing a wind chill factor in the teens on Tuesday, despite a mix of clouds and sun. The city and the surrounding suburbs will struggle to crack 30.

Northwest Pennsylvania and western New York state could see lake-effect snows exceeding two feet by the

time the weather machine stops blowing. Lake effect snows are caused by extremely cold air blowing across the relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes.  In this case, it could lead to occasional blizzard conditions and white outs there. The

lake effect will decrease by Wednesday morning.

The Poconos will get streamers of snow, the by-product of the lake effect. It could lead to a quick few inches in a short amount of time in any snow squalls.

The Arctic cold will finally release its grip by Thursday for our region - before the next shot of cold air arrives by Friday night and into

Saturday.  That air mass will not be as cold, however.

Currently, any storm formation for Friday remains low as it appears any storm should get suppressed to our south.

Leading into Thanksgiving: Weathersavior.com predicts a warm-up as temps should approach 60 degrees by Tues., Nov. 25th as a big, sprawling storm system should sweep through the center of the country or Ohio valley.  That will linger into the big travel day on the 26th. On this type of a track this should mean rain for the east and snow in the mid west and upper mid west.

Weathersavior.com will continue to monitor your big travel day, but as of today it looks wet.

As for Thanksgiving day itself ... A cold blast should arrive as temps by day may hold only in the 30s.  So right now, we see a dry, but cold bird and no FOWL weather.