Today, temperatures are in the 60s, but we’re bracing for colder weather.

A major cold front that has brought the first widespread outbreak of winter weather to the United States is poised to glide through here this afternoon.

The actual frontal boundary will bring a few scattered showers with it, a wind direction change and much cooler air. The air mass has produced incredible cold in parts of the Rockies and Great Lakes but the air will be “less frigid” when it gets here.

High temperatures today will reach over 60 today one last time, probably for a while, and maybe for several months.

Tomorrow, we will see highs near 45 to 50, and Friday we will struggle to break 40 degrees.

Over the weekend, most of us will see maximum temperatures a degree or two either side of 40. Our “normal” high is around 53 for this time of November.

With the colder than normal air mass in place, we have to watch any disturbances, weak or potent as they could bring us our first snow of the season.

Two chances exist. One is late on Thursday night and another one is late Sunday into Monday morning.

We will be looking onto the possibility of some small accumulations because of this set-up.
Another invasion of even colder air is possible next week.

A New Haven pizza shop employee is grateful to be alive after finding himself face-to-face with four armed and masked men and an accomplice while he was making a delivery on Sunday night.

"They have guns that they put on my stomach," said Yasin Elibul, who quickly realized that the order from West Park Avenue just before 7 p.m. on Sunday was not really for a pizza delivery. "When they showed me gun, I thought. ‘My family,’" Elibul said.

The robbers took his money, driver's license, credit card and phone.

Elibul, who said he was more shocked than scared, went back to Alpha Delta Pizza on Elm Street and called the authorities.

Police said the residents of the home on West Park Avenue had no knowledge of the robbery and had never placed an order. Authorities believe the robbers sent the order to an address other than their own and waited for the delivery driver to arrive, which has become a common practice.

Last month in Hamden, two people robbed a deliveryman at gunpoint on Woodin Street.

Elibul said he’s grateful to be alive and plans to protect himself by not making a delivery where he sees anything suspicious going on.

"If something happens to me they will get sad," he said.

Susan West said she had no idea what was going on outside her home.

"We were home and had no idea that anyone was in front of their home," West said.

This is not the first time this has happened, West said. The night before Halloween, a delivery man for a Chinese restaurant was robbed.

"We had no idea until the police told us later that somewhere, either coming to our house or going back to his car, he was robbed," West said about that robbery. "We try to protect ourselves as much as possible."
 

Some Hartford voters were turned away and select polling locations weren't open on time in the capital city on Election Day last week. Now, Hartford's City Council will discuss the voting snafu for the first time at its meeting Wednesday night.

Mayor Pedro Segarra and City Council President Shawn Wooden submitted two resolutions to the council last Wednesday. One called for establishing a committee to investigate the problems and the other involved restructuring the Hartford Registrar of Voters office.

While Hartford's three registrars are facing criticism for the issues as the people who oversee the election process in the capital city, the registrars previously told NBC Connecticut that problems lie in budget cuts and late ballots that had to be returned.

But the mayor said the city's registrars didn't let him know until it was too late. By that point, a superior court judge was deciding whether to keep some polling locations open late to make up for the voting problems.

The judge ruled to extend the voting hours by 30 minutes at the L.W. Batchelder Elementary School and United Methodist Church.

The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers at 550 Main Street in Hartford.

Investigators are looking for a possible serial arsonist after the fourth suspicious fire in the same Enfield neighborhood since the beginning of November.Now neighbors are concerned, wondering if their homes are safe.

Fire broke out around 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday at a former photo studio at 388 Elm Street that is now used for storage. It is two houses down from a suspicious barn fire last week.

The people who own the former studio live in a house behind it and no one was inside the burning building.

The studio is across the street from a barn and around the corner from two other suspicious fires last week. In all, there have been five suspicious fires since August within a 300-yard radius. No arrests have been made, but police said the person seems to know exactly which properties are vacant and they have a person of interest.

Some residents said they are taking extra precautions to stay safe, including installing motion sensors and security lights.

The fire spree has neighbors nervous.

"Absolutely terrified. I mean this is like a horror story a complete horror story," Melissa Crab, of Enfield said. "...We've had the lights on. We've had the TVs on the other night. When I was home, I came outside. I was walking around the house."

Other are just hoping that police make an arrest.

"What can you do?  We're just hoping somebody will be found," Gerry Berozky, owner of the former photo studio, said.

Police have increased patrols in the area and continue to investigate the fire incidents.

A judge has denied a motion by defense lawyers for former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez seeking to change the location of his trial, saying there is no reason to believe he won't be able to get a fair trial in the Boston area.

Hernandez's attorneys had argued that pre-trial publicity would make it hard for the former football star to get a fair trial in Bristol County. They said the jury pool had been "poisoned" by prejudicial pretrial publicity and suggested moving the trial "outside the Boston media market" to  Hampden County or Worcester County.

However, Judge E. Susan Garsh disagreed with the arguments made by Hernandez's attorneys.

"Hernandez has not demonstrated by a solid foundation of fact that there exists in Bristol County so great a prejudice against him that he cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial there," Garsh said in her ruling. "Nothing about the polling proffered by the defendant provides any reason to believe that impaneling a jury in Worcester or Hampden County would be any more or less difficult.

"The reality is that the extensive media coverage of this case is not driven by local media or by any particular local interest," the judge added. "Because the defendant is an athlete from a nationally prominent professional football team, the case is of interest to people across the state, New England, ann the country."

Garsh said the court will reconsider its ruling if, during jury selection, it becomes apparent that it will not be possible to pick "a fair and impartial jury" in Bristol County.

Hernandez is set to go on trial in January for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.

One employee from Connecticut Natural Gas has been taken to the hospital to be treated for burns after an explosion at the facility on Meadow Street in East Hartford on Wednesday afternoon.

Company officials said a CNG employee was performing maintenance on a compressed natural gas vehicle refueling station outside just after noon when something caused a spark and ignited a fire.

The worker sustained minor injuries, including burns to his hands and torso, and was taken to Hartford Hospital. He is in stable condition and there is a chance he could be released today, company officials said.

According to CNG, the tanks vented properly to relieve the pressure, as they are supposed to in a situation like this.

Two CNG facilities in the area  were evacuated as a precaution for almost an hour as emergency crews responded and checked on the situation.

People in the area, including employees at Red Thread, reported hearing a loud boom and feeling buildings in the area shake.

Nearby businesses, including those on Hartland Street, were also evacuated but employees have been allowed to go back inside.

Officials are investigating.

Just call it their "chairwell tour." Ellen fans in Connecticut have the opportunity Wednesday to sit in the two iconic chairs that many celebrities and Ellen DeGeneres herself have sat in before she retires them from her talk show set.

And no stranger to viral social media initiatives like the famous Ellen celebrity selfie at the Oscars, Ellen has challenged fans to find her chairs through tweeted clues on the Chairs Farewell Tour at stops around the country and share photos of themselves sitting in them on social media for a chance to win tickets to see The Ellen DeGeneres Show's 12 Days of Giveaways in December.

If you stop by the Target in Windsor between now and 2 p.m., you're right on target!

On Tuesday, @EllenRedChairs tweeted that the chairs are on their way to Connecticut and to "Be there between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and you should be right on Target."

"Ellen sent us to Target! Come by and say hi! Especially if you're close to the royal family of England. (that's a hint)," @EllenRedChairs tweeted on Wednesday.

White chairs are replacing the two red chairs on Ellen's set.

You have until 2 p.m. to get a photo op in the red chairs before they leave Connecticut.

Audience members receive many prizes during Ellen's 12 Days of Giveaways every holiday season.

The Windsor Target is located on Kennedy Road.

Bethel High School was placed in a lock-out situation on Wednesday after school officials learned of threats made against students and staff.

School officials said they learned of the threat, a combination of social media and text message, around 8:30 a.m., notified police and did not allow anyone from outside into the building.

As police investigated, they determined that no one was anyone in danger and apprehended a suspect, police said.

Supt. Christine Carver is sending a letter home to parents and guardians about the situation.

“The high school administration was notified this morning of a threat made against the students and staff at the high school. Following protocol, the high school went into and lockout this morning and the Bethel Police were notified. To take extra precaution we also did a partial lock out of the whole campus,” the letter says, in part.

Officials rescued two workers trapped in a scaffold dangling more than 60 stories high off One World Trade Center Wednesday. Here's a selection of photos shared by onlookers and responding officials on social media:

A semi-truck carrying up to 30,000 pounds of frozen turkeys took a turn too quickly Wednesday morning, flipping over on its side, spilling diesel and thousands of Thanksgiving meals headed for Costco.

But since stores can't sell food that's spilled on the road – even though the turkeys were kept perfectly safe in cardboard boxes – the poultry is instead headed to feed the hungry and homeless at the Alameda County Food Bank in Oakland, spokesman Michael Altfest said. Some of the turkeys will be shared with shelters in Contra Costa County, too, he said.

The shipment is expected to arrive by 10:30 a.m., he said.

California Highway Patrol Sgt. Joseph Azevedo told NBC Bay Area that the driver "got confused" when he was traveling on Interstate Highway 680 in San Ramon about 2:30 a.m. He originally tried to take the I-580 interchange, but ended up taking the Alcosta Boulevard ramp instead.

And because he was "not familiar" with the ramp, he rounded it at a "high rate of speed" and his rear trailer went out of control, Azavedo said. He hit the brakes but wasn't able to prevent his rig from hitting the guardrail, he said. Between 20 and 40 gallons of diesel spilled on the road, shutting it down for hours.

The driver and co-driver were trapped inside, Azevedo said, and had to be extricated by San Ramon Valley firefighters. The driver suffered minor injuries.

The turkeys had been headed to a wholesale distributor for their eventual delivery to a Costco in Livermore.

In July, 60,000 pounds of African jackfruit and bananas spilled on the side of Interstate Highway 580 in Livermore. The load of squished fruit went to feed the elephants, giraffes and bears at the Oakland Zoo.

When it comes to cleaning up after winter weather, things will be a little different this year in New Haven.

The new approach will include “more firepower, better planning, better communication,” according to New Haven Deputy Emergency Management Director Rick Fontana.

Nine new trucks will be brought in for snow removal and a new snow blower will help better clear the congested parts of downtown.

“We have a new snow plower – I'm so excited – a 10-foot snow blower that will blow the snow into trucks, and we'll be able to get closer to the curb, and our streets downtown, in particular, will be a lot cleaner, a lot faster,” said New Haven Mayor Toni Harp.

Twenty new snow routes have also been established, including eight smaller routes to cover narrow streets, seven arterial routes and a way to handle dead ends and cul-de-sacs to make sure every part of New Haven is getting cleaned with the proper equipment.

“We've changed a lot of things that we think will improve the overall outcome for snow removal in our town,” said Harp.

But officials warned that the city can only do its part if residents do theirs by moving cars off the streets during citywide parking bans.

The city is asking all residents to register with the city's emergency communication system through the city's website or by calling 203-946-SNOW.

“We'll be sending messages out and telling people how to prepare and when to prepare,” said Fontana.

Plainville police are searching for the man and woman who stole from a Marshalls store in Plainville and threatened a loss prevention worker with a knife.

According to police, the pair shoplifted at the Marshalls on New Britain Avenue on Monday. Police said the woman pulled out a knife and threatened an employee who tried to stop them.

The suspects got away in a newer white Hyundai with a large black triangle painted on the hood.

Anyone with information is urged to call Plainville police Det. Marc Rivard or Det. Sgt. Nicholas Mullins at 860-747-1616.
 

The man charged in connection with a crash that killed a woman in Stamford after her family’s food truck broke down appears to have fallen asleep behind the wheel, police said.

Victor Medina-Fajardo, 32, of Stamford, was behind the wheel of a 2003 Ford Explorer, heading south on Hope Street, around 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 18 when he crossed over the double yellow line and hit Angela Lopez-Acosta, 34, of Stamford, and her husband, Rafael Acosta-Escobar, 27, police said.

Rafael Acosta-Escobar was filling the gas tank after the food truck broke down and Lopez-Acosta was standing by his side, police said.

An ambulance transported Lopez-Acosta to Stamford Hospital’s trauma room and she succumbed to her injuries later that morning.

Medina-Fajardo turned himself in to police this morning and was charged him with misconduct with a motor vehicle.

He was held on $25,000 bond and will appear in court this morning.

Get that turkey and stuffing to go, because Black Friday doorbusters are no longer confined to Black Friday. Retailers like Target and Best Buy are starting their Thanksgiving sales even earlier than they did last year—and in many cases, those sales will keep going for days afterward. Here’s how the biggest stores are trying to lure customers away from Thanksgiving dinner and into the checkout line:

Walmart: After years of ever-earlier sales on Thanksgiving Day, the world’s largest retailer has transformed Black Friday into a five-day event. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced Wednesday that sales will begin at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Walmart will roll out sales in stores and online on different categories of merchandise like home goods, toys, and electronics. “This year, we're blowing it out with five days of deals in store and online,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, the company’s chief merchandising officer.

Target: Target is launching its “biggest, most digital Black Friday ever” at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving, with a range of deals over the weeks leading up to Black Friday. Target, which opened its doors last year at 8 p.m., is also offering free shipping up to Dec. 20. The biggest steal? Target is selling the Samsung Galaxy S5, regularly $200, for one whopping cent each (with a two-year contract).

Best Buy: In an attempt to one-up its retail competitors, Best Buy will kick off its sales at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving, an hour earlier than the store opened last year. (Best Buy is even handing out tickets up to two hours before the doors open.) As to be expected for an electronics giant, Best Buy’s flagship deal is a 50-inch Panasonic TV for $199.99.

Macy’s: Macy's will kick off its Black Friday sales at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving afternoon, two hours earlier than its opening time last year. The department store's big deals, which last until Nov. 30, are focused on clothes, shoes, jewelry and homewares.

The Holdouts: Many retailers are bucking the Black-Friday-on-Thanksgiving trend. Costco, for one, is giving shoppers a chance to digest their Thanksgiving dinner, saying that its employees “deserve the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with their families." Nordstrom, Dillard's, Barnes & Noble and GameStop are also closed on Thanksgiving, but are planning Black Friday sales.

The body found Tuesday in the San Francisco Bay was that of missing San Francisco tech worker Dan Ha, who vanished on Halloween, his family said Wednesday.

Ha's body was identified by his clothing and identification found with him, the family said at a press conference. They do not believe he committed suicide, but they have no other theories on how he ended up in the water.

Police have yet to confirm that the body is Ha's.

Coast Guard and fire crews pulled the body from the bay around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, an hour after police responded to Pier 22 for a report of a body in the water near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Crews brought the body back to shore on board a city fireboat. It appeared the person had been dead for about a week, Coast Guard officials said.

The body was turned over to the San Francisco Medical Examiner's office, which will determine the cause of death and identify the victim.

"In speaking with the medical examiner, while the face and body were indistinguishable, the clothes, wallet contents and phone matched Dan’s personal belongings," Ha's younger brother Joseph Ha said at the press conference. "At this time, we believe the body is Dan’s. We are still waiting to hear from SFPD for a full confirmation. We have no reason to believe that this was a suicide. Dan has never indicated having any intention of harming himself."

Joseph Ha said that his brother did not leave a note, had scheduled a doctor’s appointment the morning of his disappearance and was scheduled to attend a work event the next day. He added that his brother had even kept a note on his desk about returning a shirt he had recently purchased.

Ha, 26, was last seen Halloween night leaving his SoMa apartment. A roommate reported last seeing Ha around 8 p.m. near the intersection of Fourth and Brannan streets, police said.

Friends and family set up a "Find Dan Ha" Facebook page in the hopes of spreading the word about the 26-year-old's disappearance. Ha is an i0S developer at a local startup called Metromile and a Stanford University graduate.

"Dan was a talented and inspirational brother, son and friend with a huge heart and brilliant mind who touched the lives of so many people," Joseph Ha said. "He truly loved life and lived it to the fullest. We are overwhelmed by the love and prayers of our friends and family back home and here in San Francisco."

Ha thanked the local community for their support, including Ha's friends and roommates, his employer Metromite and the Stanford community which helped to search for him. The family also thanked StartX, Facebook, Square, Postmates, Apple, Uber and others in the tech community as well as the media for covering the story.

Ha's mother, father, sister and brothers had been desperate to find him, and they joined in a public search party for him on Sunday, driving to San Francisco all the way from British Columbia.

“Pray for us in our time of sorrow and shock,” Ha's father said.

Ha's family will be holding a memorial service for him Friday at 7:30 p.m. at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in San Francisco. The family is accepting donations to help offset the cost of funeral expenses which will be held in Washington.

NBC Bay Area's Mark Matthews and Riya Bhattacharjee contributed to this report.

Police are searching for the four men who robbed an East Hartford store at gunpoint on Friday and stole $3,000 worth of cigarettes and a register drawer full of money.

According to police, four suspects entered the Dairy Market at 241 Silver Lane around 7:30 p.m. Friday. Two of the men had guns and jumped the counter, attacking a store employee.

The suspects got away with cigarettes valued at $3,000 and a cash register drawer containing an unknown amount of money, police said.

A witness saw the suspect drive off in a newer black or dark-colored four-door car, possibly a Ford. The vehicle was last seen entering the HOV lane on Interstate 84 eastbound.

The robbery was captured on surveillance video and police are working to identify the suspects.

Anyone with information is urged to call East Hartford police Det. Dan Ortiz at 860-291-7669 or email dortiz@easthartfordct.gov.

The former business partner of a man whose remains were found with his wife's and two children's in the high desert north of Los Angeles pleaded not guilty to murder charges Wednesday afternoon, more than four years after the slayings.

Charles Chase Merritt, arrested one week ago in the San Fernando Valley, was in handcuffs when he appeared in court for Wednesday's arraignment. The 57-year-old Merritt's arrest marked a stunning development in an investigation that began after Joseph McStay, 40, Summer McStay, 43, and their two young children, ages 4 and 3, mysteriously vanished from their Fallbrook home in February 2010.

"I've been given 900 pages today in a disc that I have to read," Merritt's attorney Robert Ponce said outside the courthouse. "My background on this case is limited to having this in my hand, reading some of the things that I read in the newspapers, and online."

Few leads developed until the discovery of the family member's remains three years later about 100 miles from their San Diego County home. The skeletal remains were found in and around shallow graves in the high desert near Victorville in southwestern San Bernardino County.

Merritt, who was working on a project for Joseph McStay's custom water fountain business, was charged last week with four counts of murder. During a Friday news conference to announce the arrest, investigators provided few details about what led them to Merritt.

When asked whether the was a break in the case that cast suspicion on Merritt, investigators said there was "no smoking gun." Investigators said they reviewed evidence provided by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department that pointed to Merritt's involvement.

Authorities have not discussed a motive for the slayings, which authorities said occurred inside the McStay family's home. All were victims of blunt-force-trauma, sheriff's officials said at Friday's news conference.

Since his arrest was announced, Merritt's friends and family members have portrayed him as a "good guy" who would not hurt anyone. One friend described him as a "real pleasant cowboy type."

In an exclusive interview with NBC Connecticut on Wednesday, one of the Hartford Registrars of Voters apologized over last week's Election Day snafu, saying she failed in her responsibility to voters.

“I feel like the people of Hartford deserve an apology and the people in the office have actually done something wrong," said Urania Petit, who has held the job since 1999. "It was an administrative error.”

Petit is one of the city's three registrars under the microscope after the late delivery of voter registration lists hampered voting at a number of city polls. A judge ruled to extend voting hours at two of the precincts as a result.

When asked if there was anything she would have done differently, Petit said she would have sent the logs of voters out to the precincts sooner.

"We could have sent the books out when they were available, but instead we waited until all of the books were available," Petit explained.

Petit said she was completely in the dark about the voting issues that occurred at some of the most high-profile precincts in the state.

The polling locations for Gov. Dan Malloy, Attorney General George Jepsen and Secretary of the State Denise Merrill all saw delays that turned away some voters.

Tonight the Hartford City Council voted 8-2 in favor of forming a committee to investigate the registrars' office and the problems that arose last Tuesday.

“I welcome the investigation," Petit said. "I think that they ought to have an investigation because I think that some good will come out of it, because this investigation is going to teach us what all was broken and how we fix it.”

A pair of turkeys are causing a commuting mess in Wallingford.

The turkeys, nicknamed Fred and Ethel by some, and Burt and Ernie by others, are blocking traffic and chasing cars near the intersection of Route 150 and West Dayton Road just about every morning.

Jackie Thurston, who took video of the turkeys, said the pair are out every morning around 7:30 a.m.

Some drivers have been held up by the curious fowl.

“When you get close, they run away, that's all,” said Rocco Totino, who lives nearby.

Bob Cremin owns a six-acre farm on Route 150 and has seen the turkeys, too, but he says they've mostly stayed away from his farm.

“They're in the general area, but we don't have a problem with them, because we have so many animals, it seems to keep them away,” said Cremin.

Despite the slow going, drivers said the turkeys haven't caused any major traffic troubles.