You may know what will be on your Thanksgiving dinner plate – perhaps some stuffing, potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, turkey or maybe even goose, if you’re feeling daring.

But you don’t know how these holiday staples will be arranged on your plate. Or how much of each you will eat. That’s kind of like trying to pick the precise weather map for Thanksgiving Day, still a week away. We know the dishes on Mother Nature’s menu, but we don’t know whether we’ll be getting a heaping serving or just a bite – or when things will come out of the oven.

However, modern forecasting is skillful enough to take a stab at Mother Nature’s Thanksgiving Day weather plate. Hope your palate is ready for a diverse array of flavors.

Over 90 million people in the United States are forecast to have a high temperature colder than 40˚F on Thanksgiving. Ben Noll for The Washington Post/Source: ECMWF

Whether it’s warm, cold, stormy or tranquil in the contiguous United States next week has a lot to do with a place thousands of miles away: Alaska.

Weather patterns that are connected across long distances are known as an atmospheric teleconnection. In the coming days, a loopy jet-stream pattern near Alaska – the same one that contributed to a bomb cyclone and atmospheric river this week – will strike again. It’s expected to cause cold air to become dislodged, spreading southward into the contiguous United States.

On Monday, the week’s first unusually cold air mass is forecast to reach the northern Rockies and northern Plains, spelling a chilly start to the week from Montana to Minnesota and southward to Kansas.

A swath of snow may spread from the Dakotas to northern New England as the air mass is ushered eastward.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, typically some of the busiest travel days of the year, the chilly conditions are forecast to reach the Midwest, then the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The arrival of the cold air mass will be preceded by rain showers and increasingly gusty winds.

If you’re someone who either lives in or is planning to visit one of these regions, you might consider starting your packing with an extra sweater rather than a T-shirt. After all, it’s better to overpack your luggage than underdeliver on your pumpkin pie.

The incoming air mass will squash warm air all the way into the Deep South. The stretch from the Four Corners to Florida is generally expecting a warmer-than-average start to the week.

Along the West Coast, there may be an unwelcome guest. While it doesn’t look like another atmospheric river, a slow-moving area of low pressure may bring rain and snow to areas that will have seen more than their fair share this week.

What’s on the Thanksgiving Day weather plate?

There are early signs that Mother Nature may be cooking up another storm around the big day.

A fresh surge of Arctic air is forecast to move into the central United States, where it may clash with southern warmth – leading to the potential for a new weather system.

This far out, the level of detail possible in a forecast can be compared to looking at your Thanksgiving dinner plate without glasses, if you wear them. There’s definitely a cut of meat – but you can’t tell if it’s turkey or chicken – and the stuffing is indistinguishable from the potatoes.

But the plate is definitely full: A variety of precipitation could cover the country next Thursday, with the central states and the Midwest looking like a weather focal point. By the time dessert is served, precipitation could hit even the Mid-Atlantic or Northeast.

The active weather could track into the East by Black Friday – as the focus shifts from Thanksgiving dinner to leftovers, big sales and perhaps big weather.

Ice cream or apple pie? Let the weather decide.

Choosing which desserts to indulge in on Thanksgiving is hard. But have you considered letting Mother Nature be your guide?

In the graphic below, areas forecast to have a high temperature of greater than 70 degrees on Thanksgiving are shaded orange, while areas forecast to have a high temperature of less than 40 degrees are shaded teal.

Around 80 million people live in the teal zone, where a warm slice of apple pie may just be the perfect complement to the chilly air.

Meanwhile, the orange zone covers just nine states. Those within it might be lucky enough to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner outdoors and a cold treat like ice cream could be appropriate.

Check back next week when we reexamine Mother Nature’s choices for the big day. If our early forecast is reasonably accurate, there will be something on the menu for everyone.