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Subscribe to RSSSeveral areas in western New York reported snowfalls of a foot or more and heavy snow and ice knocked out power in parts of Maine and Michigan. NBC's Scott Newell reports.
While not as severe as the two previous days, air travel delays caused by a wintry mix of snow, high winds and heavy rain continued across the country Saturday, while some areas were expecting up to a foot of snow by day's end.
The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings Saturday for parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Ohio on the East Coast and also parts of Northern California and Oregon on the West Coast.
As of 6 p.m. ET Saturday, more than 6,300 flights had been delayed and 144 were canceled, according to the website FlightStats.com.
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were the most impacted, according to the website’s figures.
In Atlanta, at the world's busiest airport, NBC's Gabe Gutierrez finds that there weren't nearly as many cancellations on Saturday as there were Thursday and Friday in the wake of the winter storm.
On Friday, nearly 900 flights were canceled and 13,500 delayed across the country, FlightStats reported.
Weather.com said the storm was likely to linger over northern New England during the weekend.
“Winds will be the most intense from parts of southern New England and New York to the Mid-Atlantic on Saturday,” it said. “Farther to the west, the Great Lakes snowbelts and Appalachians will continue to see wind-whipped snow on Saturday.”
It warned people in those areas to be prepared for winter driving conditions with “sudden reductions in visibility” due to the weather possible.
On Thursday, two people were killed and seven injured in a 30-vehicle pileup on Interstate 35 in Iowa. Drivers were blinded by blowing snow and didn't see vehicles that had slowed or stopped, causing a chain reaction of crashes, state police said.
After extreme weather upset travel plans in the last few days, the forecast on the horizon seems ready for Santa, with a possible dusting of snow expected in some parts of the country. TODAY's Dylan Dreyer reports.
Thousands of flights disrupted across US as storm hits Northeast
The storm was also blamed for traffic deaths in three other states: two deaths each in Nebraska and Wisconsin; and one in Kansas.
In Utah, a woman who tried to walk for help after her car became stuck in snow died Tuesday night.
The West Coast was also seeing stormy weather.
The NWS said several inches of rain along with several feet of snow in elevated areas were expected in California and Oregon this weekend.
NBC's Ian Johnston contributed reporting.
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There is no doubt, it's going to be a white Christmas and winter is here.,Congratulations everybody for having survived the end of the world....put some wood in the fireplace, start using those emergency food storage supplies and roast those chestnuts.Put on some hot chocolate Hope everyone drives carefully Hug your loved ones traveling when they get home.Jack Frost has arrived!
a rather odd thought but,considering the time zone between where ever you are and me in Afghanistan,hypothetically my world should have ended hours before yours..LOL sorry..very long day it's sack time for this old trooper.
thanks for answering the call wolfhound, wish you and all others could be home where you belong. be careful over there. Wishing a Merry Christmas to all my brothers and sisters over there as well as those over, under and on the sea's. May you all come "back to the world" in one piece.
VFFV
I just had to get on here and say. I'am dreaming of a white Christmas. Glad you all made it past the end. Or did it happen and this is what the end is? Merry Christmas everyone.
Merry X-mas to you as well Mary....
last week the temps here dipped to -26 this morning +7
update.archaeologist now say the myans meant sunday.it never ends.
Let it snow...let it snow..
Even Mother Nature heard this call and in a festive mood. Maybe time to scrap this song from the Christmas Album?
Talk about flight delays! Took my husband and I two days to return home from the midwest due to these storms. Delay..delay..delay...canceled flight...delay the next day, delay at the connecting flight, and half a day later, home sweet home!!! We would drive if it wouldn't take 2 days to do so! I envy those who don't have to travel to see their families. Merry Christmas! Hug your loved ones tight, and remember the reason for the season!
I remember, a generation ago, when flights took off in blizzards and massive storms (and landed in them as well) and no planes crashed. Today, if there's one flake of snow, one drop of rain, one whisp of fog, they cancel flights and inconvenience their now overpaying customers. There was a time when airlines did all they could for their customers and they made money hand-over-fist. Today, it's how much money they can make for their CEO's and major shareholders and they lose money hand-over-fist.
it doesn't take a brain in economics to figure out what's not working.
Jerry - you're absolutely correct. Modern airliners are engineered to fly under the most extreme conditions, and airports have the technology to remove almost all obstacles short of a volcano on the runway. The REAL problem is airline companies that place profits over passengers, unions that have permeated the industry to such an extent that they ban employees from working under what they call "hazardous conditions" (euphemism for possibly slipping on ice) and airports that would rather close up than spend the money to keep runways open. Those that want to defend Airlines Unions can kiss my behind - I know the deal, two of my relatives are card-carrying employees of United and have fully educated me on this BS. I have also flown all over the world, and rarely do airports close in Europe or Asia because of weather. All I can say to the people that may now spend their Christmas (including many of our military trying to get home on leave) in O'Hare and other airports is "Merry Christmas from the 3 Grinches - United, Delta, and American!
JP, I'm a strong union supporter, a very strong one as a matter of fact because they are necessary against the vindictiveness and greed of corporate owners. But I have to say, I fully agree on how many in the airline unions abuse a system designed to protect them from wanton firing and exploitation to something that makes them a bunch of princesses and drama queens. I also have acquaitances who are members of airline (and airport) unions, and they make sure that they don't have to work and still get paid if they complain they'll knick a fingernail. Several times my luggage did not arrive when I did and when I pushed I found out that the workers didn't switch it from one jet to another because they were on their contract-determined "coffee break." 'Scuse me? Who's paying their salary? Me. They can drop my luggage and leave it so they can take their break they feel they're entitled to? Yes, they are entitled to one, but only after they've finished the job for which they are rather generously paid. Like I said, I'm a big union supporter. I'm also a supporter of people doing the job for which they are paid. Greed is rampant at the top; unfortunately, it's also wide-spread at the bottom. As a union supporter, let me say, when you drink the coffee I'M paying for, you'll drink it when I tell you. That goes for the CEO sitting in his comfortable office to the baggage handler on the sweltering or freezing tarmac. Again, I'm a big union supporter. Without them, we'd still have eight-year-old children working sixteen-hour days in dangerous factories. The wealthy corporatists cannot be trusted to do what's moral. Unfortunately, now we have workers who also can't be trusted to do the same thing.
Hey...I just discovered the "end of the world" morons meet in the same room as the "climate change" idiots.
So...we're still here, but we're cold. Yay!
Welcome Steve, I see you are a card carrying member.
and their lousy tipper's to boot.
Right, because a stupid premonition is the exact same as environmental science. One lousy snow storm sure as hell doesn't mean that global warming doesn't exist!!!
Nor does "the warmest summer in 100 years.", which brings out climaticians by droves to say it proves climate change either. Global warming? Since the first days of earth after cooling (from molten iron and nickel) the climate has been cyclical. Like the tide, it goes up and comes down. Climate change predictions are as if the experts say "The tide has gone down for an hour, and we predict the ocean water will disappear" or "The tide has gone up for an hour, and we predict the oceans will soon cover the Earth."
Steve - how dare you imply that active volcanoes, forest fires, methane gas bubbles, rotting vegetation in the Amazon, and normative climate patterns that have affected weather for several million years do NOT have the same impact on climate change as people driving 8 cylinder cars and using hair spray. You need to spend some time with GGG - Great Guru Gore to liquefy your brain like all the other "green people" have done.
FamousAmos - a brain does not make an intelligent life form.
HA! So much for the theorists on global warming!
JCH; do you ever read any scientific journals? Sea levels are rising and polar ice is melting at an alarming rate; these are FACTS! Or do you just run around Wyoming chasing female sheep, hoping to get lucky?
Thankfully Scientists have told us species of Whales were extinct and yet they exist.
Good luck in believing in false prophets.
Climate change is real. You are deluded.
Yep, it changes every ten thousand years!
morning takenada. .....
still got your left blinker on i see.
so thats this years excuse. so i ask you ....whats new?
I live in Chicago and we are not getting weather. What are they talking about???? We have NO snow and it's sunny and pretty mild for this time of year
You do realize if weather is bad in some of those cities where flights out of Chicago may be going, the flights out of Chicago, whether it's Midway or O'hare where it's 50 degrees and sunny, can be cancelled right?
What was that storm you had in Chicago a couple years back? Remember that one? Where people had to abandon their cars and all that jazz? And then all you Chicagoans were looking for someone to blame?
climate change is about as real as taxing the rich will be the answer for everything and hey krmudgeon your the sheep that believe all the liberal b.s. by the way are we still fighting a war in afghanistan? why don't we hear about it? how many brave soldiers have died this month?????? boy its cold in florida tonight must be global warming
Hey mxer; Have you ever heard of capitalizing and punctuation? Oh, I forgot; you can't fix STUPID !!
Climate change is real and so is taxing the rich. The rich are causing climate change. We need to take their money away from them since they're evil and don't care about anybody but themselves. They don't create jobs (except in communist China, which is okay by them since most of the rich are communist). Unless we hyper-tax the rich, communism and climate change will spread. We need to take their money away for being so greedy. We'll still command them to make it, but then we'll take it away. If they don't agree, we'll send them and their families to Gitmo and seize all they have. Then productive Americans and their children will continue to be productive. As for the rich and their children, who cares? "Daddy, it's so hot here in Gitmo and I don't feel good." That's what we patriotic Americans want to hear from the mouths of spoiled, brat children of the rich. That will make the rich suffer more and that's what we want.
and,,, a bit crazy too, right? lol
Are people @!$%#ing stupid?
This happens every single year, every one.
Anyone that attempts to travel the holiday season is just an idiot. There is no other word for it.
Have fun hanging out at the airport, stuck on the side of the road or planning a funeral, each and everyone of you deserve it.
You sound really pissed off! Maybe you'll have a stroke ;-)
I agree, people traveling right before Christmas, or on that day,, they expect it to go perfect, I think serves them right,, no one tries to respect family time..
(David N.'s wife here.) Bulletin; last I heard NORTH America is in the NORTHERN and Western Hemisphere! Do they not teach geography any more????? It is WINTER people!!!!!!!! What else do you expect???? (Just sayin.)
I'd sure like to know where? Wednesday last week we were supposed to have gotten a good snow according the Colorado Springs weather people. Where? Two inches of snow on Pikes Peak, huh? Where? Myself and three other guys stood on the loading dock of our facility to check out Pikes Peak and the so-called two inches of snow. Yeah, where? Today, just before Christmas its bare rock up there. Blizzard conditions across the west, huh? Where? Nice try weather people. # # #
same @!$%# every year and we think this is news
Not to you, of course, because nobody wants you with them during the holidays.
you might be right "god" but it beats hanging out with your lame ass
HA! Deal wit' it, bltches!
I am also dreaming of a white Christmas in the suburbs of Washington,D.C. but with our great fortune
it will rain on everyone's parade. A blessed Christmas to all who read this and may the spirit of the
Christ child and the risen savior rest upon your spirits!!!
Weather delays must be Bush's fault.
The Langoliers didn't show up on time so the End of the World was cancelled.
I'm glad I live a local life and never fly.....if I have to travel I drive. Drove to Tennessee..12hrs works for me
I think the closer to Christmas the more someone should have to pay for a ticket,, On Christmas a airline ticket should be double price, airline workers should get double pay, same goes with hotel industry, Toysrus is now making their employees work 24hours between now, and Christmas,, it's ridiculous, all about GREED for uppermanagement, those living a life where the money is the only thing they see, and hear,, forget the employees, and their families, I wouldn't mind going to the toy store tonight, but NO WAY will I go during these ridiculous hours of the night to go buy a toy. I'm thinking of the employees they get to stay over during a time they are used to being home with their families.. I understand time doesn't stop, like airlines, hotels, mail service but I think people should have to pay more for service getting closer to the holidays. I do think its kind of funny it seems getting more near the holidays like Christmas it seems mother nature really beats on the travel industry and slows it down,, I think it has alot to say ,, maybe airlines should cut their flying schedules down, raise the price, if people need to go that bad, have them pay for keeping people away from their families,, I think all stores should raise their prices on certain days closer to Christmas,, I just think people shouldn't forget what it's all about,, Families are forgotten!
Hundreds are stranded, thousands are not, and another idiot on the internet.
First you say the price should be doubled for Christmas (in other words don't go) and you end in saying Families are forgotten and we should think about what Christmas is all about?
So my family is on the other side of the country so in order to see them for Christmas I should pay double?
Why is everybody always saying, "I think"? If a nuclear physicist discusses a precept on this yak-yak guessing game show, no one could say a word. Just blowing off steam without a degree in that field doesn't make anybody an expert. Yes, global warming is real but like fortune tellers and meteorologists, no one has an exact prediction. If someone lost his house through a bad mortgage and has nothing left to show for it, where were his brains before he entered into that contract? If someone lost their 401k in the last few years, didn't anyone see the handwriting on the wall, meaning why was I spending more than my salary, etc. Common sense has been flushed down the toilet concerning money and how to hold onto it. As for mother nature, how long can a person keep on abusing that dog until it dies? There is no respect, no self control, and no real freedom left on mother earth. The buck starts with each one of us being responsible. What a stupid idea.That dog won't hunt, he's dead.
Bahahhahaaa!!! Here's what you sound like:
"Just blowing off steam without a degree in that field doesn't make anybody an expert. Yes, global warming is real"
Bahahahaaa!!! So you're the expert you say doesn't exist???