Winter makes appearance: Big shock heads east

A seasonal shock is moving from the Midwest to the East over the next several days, ending a recent mild streak.

A week before the Thanksgiving holiday and late-November weather finally arrives in the Great Lakes, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The WeatherRadar shows the same system bringing rain and snow to the Dakotas will streak across the Great Lakes Thursday before settling over the Northeast Friday.

This will bring big changes. Much-needed rain will fall across New England while unseasonably cold air will be pulled southward out of Canada.

Afternoon highs that were in the 50s and 60s on Monday and Tuesday from Virginia to southern New England will only be in the 40s for the week's second half.

Across the upper ridges of the central Appalachians and in the Poconos of northeastern Pennsylvania and the Catskills of southern New York, temperatures will be just cold enough for heavy, wet snow to fall. This will make for some slick roads late Thursday into Friday and localized power outages are possible.

It will take a little bit of time for the storm system to move out of the Northeast, so rain showers and even a few snowflakes will be possible along the I-95 corridor from Washington to New York City on Friday.

Now is the best time to get prepared for the winter weather ahead. Make sure you have repacked your snow survival kit in your car.