As the Thanksgiving and winter holiday seasons get underway, AccuWeather meteorologists warn that travel across the West can be slowed by multiple strong, moisture-packed storms moving ashore over the next few weeks.

The period of stormy weather will at first be limited to the Pacific Northwest into this weekend, but then it will expand south, with impacts coming to California and the interior Great Basin region beginning next week. Next week's storms could be the first significant ones of the winter season, packing heavy rain, mountain snow and strong winds.

While detrimental to travel in the run-up to the Thanksgiving holiday, the storminess will have a silver lining: It could help put a lid on the wildfire season across a large portion of the West.

The return to wet, white and windy weather in the West actually began earlier this month when a pair of storms tracked through the Northwest and northern Rockies. AccuWeather meteorologists say those systems, and the next two storms expected to arrive in the same area later this week into the weekend, are just the beginning of what will be a stormy month.

The first storms were already beginning to impact the Pacific Northwest on Thursday and will bring a round of locally heavy rain to places such as Portland and Seattle into the weekend.

Packing moisture from the Pacific Ocean, the initial systems can bring an inch or more of rain, adding to what has already been a wet start to the month in Seattle. Through Nov. 8, 4.09 inches of rain had fallen at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, which is about 2.5 inches above the historical average for the first eight days of the month.