Thanksgiving Storm Threatens Travel Plans

[Summer Sun]

Thanksgiving travel could be disrupted as a deadly winter storm heads south and east, bringing rain, sleet and snow during one of the busiest holiday seasons. Forecasters said they expected the difficult conditions on Tuesday and Wednesday as millions of people hit the roads and airports. Flight could be delayed and roads could be icy, they said. The Arctic mass, which started in the West, is making its way through Oklahoma, Texas and other parts of central and southwest America. Meteorologist Tom Bradshaw said: "It's certainly going to be a travel impact as we see the first few people making their way for Thanksgiving." The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the most heavily travelled in the US, with some 39 million people expected to hit the roads from Wednesday to Sunday.

 

The storm has been blamed for at least eight deaths in several fatal traffic accidents. It also caused hundreds of rollover accidents, including one that injured three members of singer Willie Nelson's band when their bus hit a pillar on a highway northeast of Dallas. The National Weather Service has issued winter weather advisories for parts of Texas and Oklahoma, New Mexico and northern Arkansas as snow and freezing rain was expected to accumulate throughout the region.

 

http://news.sky.com/story/1173386/thanksgiving-storm-threatens-travel-plans

[Coast]

Already killed 13

 

A major winter storm that has dumped freezing rain and snow in the US southwest has killed at least 13 people in five states, US media reported. The storm is expected to continue east over the next several days, just as tens of millions of travellers are expected to hit the road or take to the skies ahead of the US Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. Images from the storm-hit region showed thick layers of ice on sidewalks and icicles dripping off leaves.

 

The storm is forecast to bring substantial snow to the Appalachian Mountains and New England, in the northeast, by Wednesday, which is one of the biggest US travel days of the year, according to meteorologists. Further south, heavy rain could also hinder both road and air travel, they said. The American Automobile Association predicts more than 43 million people will be travelling over the holiday weekend, in which many visit far-flung family to share the Thanksgiving meal. Meanwhile, icy roads and flooding have already created hazardous conditions in Oklahoma, Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. Four people died in separate crashes in Oklahoma, another four in two incidents in Texas, and a four-year-old child was killed when the car she was in rolled over in New Mexico, NBC news reported, citing state troopers and emergency personnel.

 

In California, where the storm hit first last week, one person was killed by downed power lines, another when a tree fell on her parked car, and a third in a traffic accident, NBC said. And in Arizona, a person was swept away in storm-related flooding in the Santa Cruz river and his body was recovered on Friday.

 

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10471913/Deadly-winter-storm-hits-US-southwest-ahead-of-Thanksgiving.html

 

 

[Coast]

A storm system forecast to bring heavy rain to the U.S. East Coast today is set to disrupt travel plans after grounding hundreds of flights in the South as the Thanksgiving holiday rush begins. Rain is expected along the East Coast from Atlanta to Boston, with sleet and freezing downpours in parts of the Mid-Atlantic and the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said on its wsebsite. Heavy snowfall is possible in Western Pennsylvania, western New York and New England.

 

“The I-95 corridor is going to see a lot of rain and a lot of wind and that will be true from the mid-Atlantic states all the way up to Boston and Portland,†Rob Carolan, owner of Hometown Forecast Services in Nashua, New Hampshire, said yesterday. “This is not going to be a snowstorm for the megalopolis.†The storm triggered winter weather advisories from New Mexico to Arkansas and parts of Mississippi, according to the National Weather Service. At least 10 people were killed over the weekend as the system moved across Texas and the South, according to the Associated Press.

 

As of 12:08 a.m. New York time, 491 flights into and around the U.S. were canceled, with 338 of them originating or departing from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, according to industry data tracker FlightStats.com. About 43 million people are expected to travel at least 50 miles (80 kilometers) from home during the holiday period from Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, AAA said last week in its annual outlook. The Southern storm will merge with another from Canada and the Great Lakes as it moves east, according to Carolan. With heavy rains into the middle of the week, travel problems will spread as well, said Tom Kines, a meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania.

 

“There’s no doubt there are going to be travel delays at least as far as airplanes are concerned,†Kines said by phone yesterday. Snow will fall mainly in the upper elevations along the Appalachian Mountains northward through western New York and northern New England, Carolan said. A winter storm watch is in place from eastern Ohio to northern Vermont, according to the weather service. Winter weather and freezing rain advisories were posted from Georgia to Virginia. Heavy snow is possible in the mountains of West Virginia and Virginia today, according to the U.S. Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. Northern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine may also receive deep snow by Nov. 28. The storm will be followed by another burst of cold air, Carolan said by phone.

 

 

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-25/wintry-storm-delaying-air-travel-moving-northeast-with-hard-rain.html

[Summer Sun]

US storm tracks northeast by Thanksgiving

 

A winter storm sweeping across the US has already caused travel disruption in the run-up to Thanksgiving.

 

BBC Weather's Philip Avery looks at the track of the storm and its potential impact in the coming days.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/25108700

[Summer Sun]

New York will see a significant temperature drop in 24 hours 17c and heavy rain tomorrow (Wednesday) 1c and dry but cloudy on Thursday

 

[Coast]

New York will see a significant temperature drop in 24 hours 17c and heavy rain tomorrow (Wednesday) 1c and dry but cloudy on Thursday

 

It is possible that the giant balloons at the Macy’s Thanksgiving day Parade may not fly if the city experiences severe weather, New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly said during a news conference Monday. The National Weather Service predicts a northwest wind of 18 to 23 miles per hour on Thanksgiving day, with gusts as high as 37 miles per hour. This comes after very heavy rain and winds predicted for Tuesday night into Wednesday.

 

Mr. Kelly said the balloons can be made to fly at various heights, depending on the weather. “They can be lowered all the way to the ground or a determination is made not to fly them,†Mr. Kelly said. The NYPD has assigned a sergeant to each of the balloons during the parade, Mr. Kelly said. “Unless there are reports of a major storm system, the decision would be made that day,†with officials at the city’s Office of Emergency Management, Mr. Kelly said.

 

Mr. Kelly said past incidents are reason to be cautious about the weather. In 2005, two people were injured when an M&M balloon struck a light pole in high winds and brought part of the fixture to the ground. And in 1997, a Cat in the Hat balloon brought down part of a lamppost, injuring four people.

 

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2013/11/26/weather-could-ground-thanksgiving-parade-balloons/

[Coast]

Weather walloping East Coast as roughly 43 million travel for Thanksgiving

 

As many as 628 flights cancelled and almost 6,000 delays, according to FlightStats.com. Storm developed in the west and killed 11 people. Snow accumulating in sections of the Northeast, rain and heavy wind expected in New York.

 

A wall of storms packing ice, sleet and rain could upend holiday travel plans as millions of Americans take to the roads, skies and rails Wednesday for Thanksgiving. So far, the deadly storms barreling into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast have not resulted in many flight delays or cancellations, but forecasters were expecting the weather to worsen throughout the day.

 

“The timing of the storm couldn’t be worse,†said Chris Vaccaro, spokesman for the National Weather Service headquarters in Silver Spring, Md. “We are seeing numerous threats as the storm is beginning to develop and intensify.â€

 

Many travelers marveled at how orderly and anxiety-free the airports were during what is typically one of the busiest days of the year. One big question lingered in New York: Will high winds ground Snoopy and the other giant cartoon-character balloons at the Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving Day? The storm for the most part unleashed wind-driven rain along the Northeast’s heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor from Richmond, Va., to the tip of Maine.

 

Emerging from the weather gantlet was Katie Fleisher, who made it by car from Portsmouth, N.H., through rain and fog to Boston’s Logan Airport with little trouble and discovered to her amazement that the panicked, cranky crowds she expected were nonexistent. “We thought it would be busier here. But there’ve been no lines, and it has been really quiet all morning,†said Fleisher, whose plan was to fly to Pittsburgh.

 

“Our flight is still on time, but we are checking the app every couple minutes,†she said. “We are nervous, as we are traveling with two 1-year-olds, and any extra time on a plane would be horrible.†The storm was expected to drop around 6 inches of snow in parts of West Virginia and western Pennsylvania and up to a foot in a pocket of upstate New York. Damaging winds gusting up to 60 mph were expected to rip through Boston and other coastal areas. Those winds could prevent the giant balloons from taking flight this year at the Macy’s parade. Safety rules that specify wind speeds were enacted in New York after a spectator was killed in 1997 in an accident involving an out-of-control balloon.

 

Flight cancellations piled up at East Coast hubs. Flightstats.com is reporting as many as 628 flights cancelled and almost 6,000 delays at about 8:45 p.m. Wednesday evening. But that was a fraction of the nearly 32,000 flights that were scheduled to, from or within the U.S. on Wednesday. And the weather in many places was improving as the day wore on. Most of the cancellations involved Newark, N.J., Philadelphia and New York’s LaGuardia Airport. The storm system, which developed in the West, has been blamed for at least 11 deaths, half of them in Texas. It limped across Arkansas with a smattering of snow, sleet and freezing rain that didn’t meet expectations.

 

“It’s just really cold. We had drizzle but no snow,†said Courtney O’Neal-Walden, an owner of the Dairyette diner on U.S. 270 in Mount Ida, Ark. “You can see (ice) on the power lines, but the roads are fine.†But even a weaker than expected storm system is potentially bad news the day before Thanksgiving — the anticipated busiest travel day of the year.

 

More than 43 million people are to travel over the long holiday weekend, according to AAA. The overwhelming majority — about 39 million people — will be on the roads. But more than 3 million people are expected to filter through airports, and the weather could snarl takeoffs and landings at some of the busiest hubs on the East Coast, including New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston and Charlotte, N.C.

 

Transportation officials advised travelers to check with their airlines and reduce speed on highways. Travel experts suggested airline passengers might be able to have penalty fees waived if they wanted to change their bookings because of the weather. Weather woes aside, there were some things for travelers to be happy about this year. The Federal Aviation Administration last month lifted restrictions on the use of most personal electronic devices during takeoffs and landings, and some airlines, including American, have already begun allowing passengers to stay powered up from gate to gate.

 

On the ground, gas prices are a little cheaper than a year earlier. For car-less urbanites, Amtrak is adding more trains for the holiday, and a new breed of express intercity bus was drawing more passengers hoping to escape airport hassles without sacrificing comfort. Jeff Smidt hoped to travel from his home in Toronto on Wednesday to visit his family near Boston. He planned to drive if he could not fly because of the weather.

 

“My understanding is that I’m traveling at like the worst time ever,†Smidt said. He tried to change his JetBlue reservation to get on an earlier flight but was told the airline wasn’t waiving any change fees yet. “Worst comes to worst, it will be an eight-hour trek down Interstate 90,†he said.

 

 

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/stormy-weather-creates-thanksgiving-travel-nightmare-article-1.1530790#ixzz2lvQqGgCA