Worst Time For Thanksgiving Travel Could Coincide With IL Storm

CHICAGO — Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and planning the logistics of your holiday travel can be a stressful affair. The same question seems to emerge every year: When is the best time to hit the road in the Chicago area?

Google Maps has identified the best and worst times to leave for your Thanksgiving road trip, helping you focus on enjoying family fun and chowing-the-turkey time.

The Illinois Tollway expects nearly 9.2 million vehicles on toll roads this Thanksgiving holiday starting Wednesday, Nov. 27, through Monday, Dec. 2, as families and friends flock to grandma's house for their annual feasts. The tollway expects the heaviest traffic on Wednesday, when nearly 1.9 million vehicles are projected to hit the road. On an average day, more than 1.6 million vehicles use the Illinois Tollway.

• Thanksgiving Turkey Trots: 2019 Chicago-Area Races
• IL Thanksgiving 2019 Grocery Store Hours: Jewel, Mariano's, More
• Thanksgiving Store Hours: Stores Open And Closed In Illinois
• Thanksgiving 2019 Store Closures In Illinois
• Black Friday 2019 Sales, When Stores Open In Illinois
• Thanksgiving, Black Friday Mall Hours: Fox Valley, Oakbrook, More

Here are the times you need to know for turkey day related travel in the Chicago area, according to Google.

• Best Time To Leave Before Thanksgiving: 2 a.m. Wednesday
• Worst Time To Leave Before Thanksgiving: 4 p.m. Wednesday
• Best Time To Leave After Thanksgiving: 3 a.m. Friday
• Worst Time To Leave After Thanksgiving: 4 p.m. Friday

But while heading out before dawn Wednesday could give you an edge on traffic, you could hit some nasty weather. AccuWeather is predicting a "winterlike storm" for the Midwest just before Thanksgiving, and the National Weather Service is calling for widespread rain and wind — including gusts of up to 45 mph — for Wednesday. Storms could start Tuesday night and last until the early morning hours.

Thanksgiving Weather: Snow, 45 MPH Gusts, Rain Possible In IL

By later in the day Wednesday, the rain will end and relatively "quiet" weather is expected for Thanksgiving Day.

Traffic on Black Friday in our city will spike around 4 p.m.

Google Maps also used aggregated and anonymized popular time data during the Thanksgiving week to identify when crowds tend to be the largest at popular holiday venues.

Bakeries, grocery stores and liquor stores all hit peak crowd levels between noon and midnight on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Movie theaters and shopping centers, though, have the most activity between noon and midnight on Black Friday.

To determine the best and worst times to drive on Thanksgiving, Google Maps analyzed data from the 2018 "Thanksgiving Holiday Period," which included the Wednesday before Thanksgiving until the end of Sunday after the holiday.

The web mapping service found the volume of cars on the road at a given time during this period, and received the traffic information anonymously from Android users in 25 cities throughout the United States.

And from all of us here at Patch, have a happy Thanksgiving!