A storm, which earlier this week ravaged the Southwestern United States killing at least 11, has now moved to the Northeast of the nation causing major travel problems along the coast. The storm, packing high winds, rain and snow has led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights in the Northeast but has not yet caused as severe travel delays as had been expected for Thanksgiving. So far, around 250 flights have been cancelled according to the air tracking website FlightAware.com but that is only a fraction of the 32,000 flights that were scheduled to, from or within the U.S. on Wednesday.
Most of those cancellations were in and out of three major Northeast hubs at Philadelphia, Newark and New York. Fortunately, (so far), the delays and cancellations have not rippled out to other parts of the country. Many travelers marveled at how orderly and anxiety-free the airports were during what is usually one of the busiest days of the travel year. The storms largest impact is occurring along the I-95 corridor from Richmond, Virginia up to the tip of Maine.
In other related news, organizers of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade are considering the possibility of not flying balloons for the first time since 1971 if winds do not decrease. However, NYPD Chief of Patrol James Hall says Thursday’s weather forecast “looks very good” and he is optimistic the balloons will be able to fly. The NYPD, the National Weather Service and Macy’s representatives will make a final determination in the morning.
Some of the longest delays appear to be affecting flights headed for Philadelphia which were held up at their points of origin for an average of about two hours because of the weather. The storm was expected to dump up to 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 up to 60 mph were expected to rip through Boston and other coastal areas. Philadelphia is under a flood watch with rain forecast which will turn to snow as temperatures fall.
We urge anyone travelling this holiday weekend to the Eastern Seaboard to check you travel plans carefully and plan ahead. It is probably a good idea to check with your airline service if traveling anywhere in the U.S. as a ripple effect almost always occurs in an event like this which ends up causing flight delays across the entire nation.
