If you’re in the market for a new MacBook Pro, we’d suggest holding off on that purchase until later this week -- although in the case of Apple’s own online store, you won’t have much of a choice, anyway.

MacRumors is reporting that Apple appears ready to launch new MacBook Pro models this week, as evidence mounts of the impending arrival. Curiously, all signs point to a launch on Thursday, February 24, which is odd given Cupertino’s tradition of launching such new products on Tuesdays.

Among the compiled evidence for the refreshed notebooks: A leak of early part numbers, with AppleInsider reporting “resellers are being notified that they will start receiving sealed packages with the new hardware early next week” -- which by now is actually this week.

“More specifically, the Mac maker this weekend began informing some of its larger European resellers that they could expect delivery of sealed product palettes to their brick-and-mortar stores as early as Monday, which coincides with one of ten federal holidays (President's Day) in the United States,” AppleInsider noted.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has sent such confidential sealed palettes to resellers -- AppleInsider and MacRumors dug up a photo of one such package shown above from a product launch in April, 2005.

Meanwhile, Best Buy’s website appears to have jumped the gun and has already pushed the part numbers into their inventory over the weekend, although with dummy pricing in place since the announcement hasn’t yet been made.

Finally, Apple’s U.S. online store currently shows shipping times of “three to five days” on each and every MacBook Pro model, which is likely the company’s way to discourage orders of the older models right now -- presumably anyone placing an order for a MacBook Pro today would wind up getting the new model anyway.

Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter

(Image courtesy of MacRumors)