A bomb cyclone on the West Coast and winter storms in the Midwest are forecast as Americans gear up for Thanksgiving travel

With millions of people preparing to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, two strong storm systems, including a bomb cyclone on the West Coast, are expected to bring high winds, heavy rain and snowfall to a large swath of the United States this week.

According to the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center, a “rapidly strengthening and extremely powerful low pressure system” in the Pacific Northwest is expected to bring damaging winds up to 70 mph to parts of Northern California, Oregon and Washington. Meteorologists call such an event bombogenesis, or the rapid intensification of a cyclone over a short period of time; it’s also known as a bomb cyclone.

The system will usher in an “atmospheric river event” on Wednesday that is expected to bring heavy rain and snow to the same region over multiple days.

“When combined with heavy snowfall at the higher elevations, blizzard conditions are in the forecast throughout the Washington Cascades,” the weather service said.

• Read more from Yahoo Life: How to stay safe and warm in winter weather: Experts’ tips for your home, your car and your family

Snow from the Plains to the Northeast

A second system — which brought severe thunderstorms to the central and southern Plains on Monday and triggered a tornado in Oklahoma — will collide with arctic air as it moves north, causing widespread snow to develop across the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Up to a foot of snow is possible in parts of North Dakota, the weather service said, adding that the snowfall “may also be accompanied by gusty winds, leading to lower visibility on roadways.”

Separately, an upper-level low pressure system was forecast to develop above the Great Lakes later this week, resulting in cooler temperatures, cold rain from the Ohio Valley to the East Coast and accumulating snow for the central Appalachians and parts of the Northeast, the weather service said.

Up to a foot snow is possible on Thursday and Friday, especially in the higher elevations of West Virginia and Maryland.

• Read more from Fox Weather: Snow, rain to slam U.S. as winter storms ramp up ahead of Thanksgiving travel

What about Thanksgiving?

Weather service forecasters have yet to issue forecasts beyond seven days, but the U.S. Climate Prediction Center’s 6-to-10-day outlook suggests above-average chances for rain in the Pacific Northwest, upper Midwest and Great Lakes during the early part of next week.

Nearly 80 million people are expected to travel more than 50 miles for Thanksgiving next week, according to AAA, with Tuesday and Wednesday expected to be the busiest times to be on the roads.

• Read more from NBC News: Almost 80 million expected to travel over Thanksgiving in record-breaking getaway