Ice and snow frustrate US holiday travel rush

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By JASON KEYSER

CHICAGO (AP) - A storm with a 2,000-mile footprint threatened to frustrate Christmas travelers from Texas to Nova Scotia with a little of everything Mother Nature has to offer, from freezing rain, ice and snow to flooding, thunderstorms and at least one tornado in the South.

Some of the millions of people hitting the roads and airports Saturday squeaked through before any major weather hit, but as the afternoon wore on, cancellations and delays started to mount at major aviation hubs. Forecasters said roads that are passable one minute could become treacherous the next as a cold blast on the backend of the storm turns rain to ice and snow.

Making it harder for forecasters to stay a step ahead, the system was a weird swirl of wintry and spring-like weather as it passed over areas in the Midwest. While ice was accumulating in Oklahoma and elsewhere, downing trees and power lines, Memphis, Tenn., was enjoying spring-like weather, with temperatures reaching into the 70s.

Authorities said a suspected tornado injured three people and damaged three homes Saturday evening near Hughes, Ark., which is just 35 miles southwest of Memphis. And David Cox, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Jackson, Miss., said a second suspected tornado touched down near Dermott in far southeastern Arkansas, injuring two people and damaging about 20 homes.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131222/DAAR4T180.html

---

A traveler walks through Terminal 3 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2013. The National Weather Service issued a hazardous weather outlook for north central Illinois, northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana Saturday morning. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

[SheilaT]

1. I am a bit reluctant to say this,

but Christmas occurs at the beginning of winter in this hemisphere.

Crappy weather, resulting in bad travel situations, sort of goes along with winter.

Christmas can occur any day of the week, so the travel around that holiday is somewhat variable. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is always on a Thursday. I was for ten years an airline ticket agent at National Airport in Washington, DC. In that time, there was one and only one Thanksgiving holiday that didn't have bad weather on at least one part (either the beginning of the return) part of the holiday. Most years it was both. Heck, one year we had really bad weather on the return half and a plane crash to boot.

Personally, even if I were willing to put up with the bullshit of the TSA these days, I still wouldn't fly at peak holiday times.