Clear skies expected for most local Thanksgiving travelers

If you're flying out of Las Vegas for the Thanksgiving Day weekend to see family or friends, you probably won't have any problems - unless your destination is Fargo, Helena, Boise or Minneapolis.

Even then, it may just be a matter of bundling up. You should be fine in getting there.

Snow and freezing temperatures are being forecast for only four states in the entire United States - North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Minnesota, according to the National Weather Service.

While those areas are expected to be hit with snow and freezing temperatures, the rest of the country - with the exception of the Pacific Northwest - is expected to have clear skies and normal late-fall temperatures, said Ryan Metzger, a meteorologist with the weather service in Las Vegas.

An encroaching cold front was hitting Washington's coast Wednesday and is expected to spawn showers and snow in the higher elevations in that state and in Oregon and down through Northern California - nothing terribly out of the ordinary for folks who live there.

If San Francisco, California's Central Valley and Central Coast are your destinations, then expect an inordinate amount of fog - not out of the ordinary but certainly more infamous in the summer months than in the winter months, the weather service said.

As for the Midwest and the Great Lakes Region - from Wisconsin to Illinois to Michigan - you could get a bit of snow and freezing temperatures off the tail end of that cold front, but not the sort of stuff that the upper reaches of the United States are bracing for.

"It started whipping up a few days ago in Canada," Metzger said of the cold front. "Then it dropped down to Washington, and now it's headed across the midsection of the United States, and it's going to slowly make its way east. But it doesn't look like it's going to cause a whole lot of problems."

Whether the song remains the same, of course, is subject to change because, well, we are talking about the weather. As Mark Twain wrote in 1897, "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

But for right now, it would seem, the only worry you might have is getting to McCarran International Airport on time.

For those who are driving, make sure your gas tank is full and pray that you don't have bumper-to-bumper traffic on your way out of town. If you're headed for Hollywood or the mess that is Los Angeles, there's no hope. Just grin and bear it. Or you could just play sedentary and stay in the Las Vegas Valley, where the next four days are expected be sunny and consistently in the 70s, Metzger said.

The only other parts of the country that are going to be warmer than Las Vegas are Miami, Florida, Phoenix, Arizona and Brownsville, Texas, where temperatures are expected to reach into the high 70s, he said.

As for the Northeastern region and the New England states, skies are clear and the weather is just fine, Metzger said.