In the US, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade marches on despite wind gusts

Marching bands, elephantine balloons and a vacation sleigh navigated done the canyons of precocious rises successful New York City arsenic the retailer Macy’s hosted its 99th Thanksgiving Day Parade.

On Thursday, the parade forged up successful the United States contempt the menace of beardown winds.

In the lead-up to the yearly tradition, the National Weather Service had warned of imaginable gusts of up to 35 miles per hour, equivalent to 56 kilometres (35 miles) per hour.

Powerful blasts of upwind reaching 55km/h (34mph) could person grounded the event, arsenic could sustained winds of 37km/h (23mph), per parade rules.

Those precautions were adopted aft the 1997 variation of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, erstwhile fierce upwind knocked a balloon representing the children’s publication The Cat successful the Hat into a airy post.

The streetlamp snapped, hitting spectators watching the parade below. One 34-year-old pistillate was struck connected the caput and spent astir a period successful a coma.

As of 2025, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has lone been cancelled 3 times, from 1942 to 1944, successful an effort to conserve materials during World War II. It has ne'er been cancelled owed to the weather.

This year’s variation features 34 giant, helium-filled balloons, including caller entries similar the Disney quality Buzz Lightyear, the video crippled quality Pac-Man and the plumber Mario from the crippled Super Mario Bros.

The prima of the Wicked movie bid Cynthia Erivo and singers from the Netflix deed K-Pop Demon Hunters made appearances arsenic the parade’s 28 floats sailed down the street.

Macy’s estimates that 3.5 cardinal radical enactment the streets each twelvemonth to spot the parade, and much than 50 cardinal ticker the event’s broadcast.

The parade snakes crossed 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) successful downtown New York, travelling on Central Park West and 6th Avenue to extremity successful beforehand of the Macy’s flagship store.

The wide watched lawsuit has besides been a magnet for protests, with Palestinian solidarity demonstrators concisely blocking the parade way past twelvemonth and successful 2023 to gully attraction to Israeli quality rights abuses successful Gaza and the West Bank.