What to expect from Mother Nature this holiday weekend

Things are off to a chilly start with a frost advisory in effect in area

The Thanksgiving holiday will arrive with some frost on the ground and temperatures in the 30s around the Bay Area. The holiday weekend will exit markedly warmer and likely without any travel headaches for fliers.

So said National Weather

Service forecasters Wednesday, as the Bay Area remained in a chilly pattern that the weather service said would culminate overnight and into Thanksgiving Day.

“Much of the inland is expected to have a very, very cold night,” meteorologist Gerry Diaz. “As we get into the weekend, we’ll feel a warming trend that will get us back to what our usual seasonal temperatures are.”

A frost advisory was expected to be in effect this morning for much of the Bay Area’s inland areas, including the interior

East Bay, the North Bay Valley and the Napa Valley. Temperatures were expected dip as low as 32 degrees in some higherelevation areas, and temperatures elsewhere were expected to hover between 35 and 37 degrees overnight, Diaz said.

Come Friday, those temperatures will start creeping up, he said, as a strong high-pressure system strengthens amid calm winds.

The most severe winds will be in Southern California, where a red-flag warning highlighting dangerous fire conditions was scheduled to remain in effect through Friday. Continuing low humidity also raised the danger of fires spreading quickly, according to the weather service.

Some 200,000 customers in the southern part of the state were under threat of power shut-offs Wednesday as utilities watched the weather conditions closely.

The high-pressure conditions also promised optimum travel conditions, according to the weather service, which said it was tracking no major storms nationally that were affected to slow down air travel.