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Thanksgiving Eve Snowstorm
November 24, 2004
Wintry landscape on
Thanksgiving morning at the NWS office
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The weather map for Wednesday
morning (6 am CST) showed low pressure (29.41 inches) across northeast
Arkansas. This low pressure intensified as it moved northeast
during the day, passing near Lawrenceville early in the afternoon with
the barometric pressure down to 29.18 inches. This helped to
produce strong winds across central Illinois late morning through the
afternoon, especially east of I-55, where some gusts approached 60
mph. |
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This image shows the 24-hour
snowfall ending on Thanksgiving Day at 6 am. The heaviest
snowfall occurred from about I-55 west to the Illinois River valley.
A text listing of snowfall amounts can be found here.
At times, the snow was accompanied by thunderstorms. |
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Liquid-equivalent precipitation
amounts were also high, due to the high moisture content in the snow,
plus the rain that fell before the precipitation changed to snow. |
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This visible satellite image, taken
late Thanksgiving morning, shows the area of heavy snow across
Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. Areas south of Decatur and
Champaign were largely snow-free. |
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By Thanksgiving morning, the low
pressure center had moved all the way to near Montreal. The
dashed blue line indicates where surface temperatures were below
freezing. |
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Other links:
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Peak Wind Gusts across central Illinois:
- Bismarck: 44 mph
- Bloomington: 48 mph
- Champaign Airport: 58 mph
- Danville: 45 mph
- Decatur: 59 mph
- Effingham: 43 mph
- Lawrenceville Airport: 37 mph
- Mattoon Airport: 47 mph
- Ogden: 48 mph
- Peoria: 39 mph
- Rantoul: 51 mph
- Springfield: 45 mph
- Taylorville: 51 mph
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White Thanksgivings in Central Illinois since 1948
(1 inch snow depth or greater around sunrise):
Peoria:
2 inch snow depth... Nov 23, 1950
2 inch snow depth... Nov 26, 1959
1 inch snow depth... Nov 23, 1972
7 inch snow depth... Nov 27, 1975
2 inch snow depth... Nov 27, 1980
4 inch snow depth... Nov 25, 2004
Springfield:
1 inch snow depth... Nov 23, 1950
6 inch snow depth... Nov 27, 1975
1 inch snow depth... Nov 27, 1980
4 inch snow depth... Nov 25, 2004
Lincoln:
1 inch snow depth... Nov 23, 1950
1 inch snow depth... Nov 26, 1959
6 inch snow depth... Nov 27, 1975
4 inch snow depth... Nov 27, 1980
4 inch snow depth... Nov 25, 2004
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