Hollywood casting couldn’t have produced a nicer weather forecast for those who are not traveling out of Central California for Thanksgiving: highs in the upper 60s on the coast, mid-60s in the Valley, and lower 60s in the Sierra foothills.

Compared to other parts of the country where snow is predicted through the Thanksgiving holiday, the Fresno area will be basking in warm sunshine after patchy early morning fog.

The only precipitation might be a few snowflakes or raindrops if you’re visiting Yosemite on Thursday, Bill South, a senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Hanford, said Wednesday morning.

Thursday’s temperatures will be 2 to 4 degrees above normal but will be followed by a cooling trend that will arrive Friday, he said.

Possible Freeze by Late Weekend

Shoppers lining up early for Black Friday deals will need to bundle up to survive an overnight low of 41 degrees, but that will seem relatively balmy compared to the freezing temperatures that could arrive by Sunday night, South said.

“As it gets closer to the event, we’ll probably be issuing a freeze watch and possibly a freeze warning for the Valley for some freezing temperatures,” he said.

It will be the first freeze of the season, and residents will be advised to cover or bring in their tender plants and shelter their pets, he said.

Wet Weather Coming

Dry weather is expected to continue through the end of November, but precipitation could start building in December and continue through February, South said.

The El Nino weather pattern could make this winter above-average for precipitation.

But it won’t be anything like last winter, South said.

“It was kind of a historic winter for us as far as the amounts of precipitation we got,” he said. “It was definitely one for the record books.”