Winter storm dumps snow, rain on Northeast, snarls airline flights

More than 2,000 flights have been canceled, and more than 200,000 customers are without power in several southern states as the impact of severe winter weather was felt across the nation. NBC's Eric Fisher reports.

A winter storm swept into the Northeast on Thursday, bringing up to 21 inches of snow, drenching rain – and a new round of travel headaches.


By late afternoon, more than 1,000 flights had been canceled, and more than 8,000 were delayed, according to FlightStats.com, frustrating thousands of stranded passengers.

At Philadelphia International Airport, assistant principal Tomorrow Jenkins was desperate to get to Orlando, Fla., where her high school’s band was slated to perform at a Rutgers University bowl game Friday.

Her flight had been delayed and canceled, and she missed a connection. “I’m a little anxious,” she told NBCPhiladelphia.com at the airport, where dozens of flights were scrapped on Thursday.


Passengers on a Southwest Airlines jet bound for Florida from Long Island faced an unexpected wait after the Boeing 737 went off the runway and got stuck in the grass. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said officials were investigating if wet weather was a factor in the mishap, which caused no injuries.

An American Airlines flight that landed safely in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night got stuck in snow for about two hours on the tarmac, The Associated Press reported. 

The Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, where all flights had been grounded until Wednesday afternoon after the storm passed, still had two dozen cancellations on the board.

It won't be a blockbuster snowfall, but most of the big cities in the Northeast will get one to three inches of snow. The Weather Channel's Chris Warren reports.

Read more at weather.com

A passenger who had been stuck on a plane at the gate there for three hours on Christmas night recorded an American Airlines pilot apologizing for the situation.

“I've made more personal phone calls than I know what to do with,” the pilot said in an audio recording obtained by WFAA-TV.

“I've spent my last quarter, to be honest with you. It's beyond reproach. I have no words to tell you... to tell you how sorry I am. This is way above our heads... by people that obviously, in my humble opinion, don't have a clue what they're doing,” said the pilot.

The airline said in a statement that it "was obviously a very challenging day" and apologized for any inconvenience.

The weather system, which developed just before Christmas, has already spawned twisters, high winds, icy roads, and record snowfall in the nation’s midsection, where it was blamed for a dozen deaths.

The Weather Channel's Eric Fisher reports from Lewiston, Maine, where snow is rapidly accumulating. The winter storm, which traveled from Texas up through the Midwest, is threatening to dump up to 2 feet of snow on parts of the Northeast.

On Thursday, it blanketed towns from Pennsylvania to Maine in white.

Woodford, Vt., got socked with 21 inches of snow -- the highest total of the storm so far. In Edwards, N.Y., 16 inches fell. Coudersport, Pa., saw 15 inches; Windsor, Mass., got 13.4 inches; and Lebanon, Maine, had a foot, the National Weather Service reported.

Where there wasn’t snow, there was rain. In New Jersey, flooding and high winds forced the closure of parts of Brick Township, local officials told the Weather Channel's Mike Seidel.

Thursday brought mostly rain to New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, but that could change this weekend. The Weather Channel’s Tom Niziol said a new system could dump up to four inches of snow on the major Northeast cities.

The Weather Channel's Michael Palmer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

On one of the busiest travel days of the year, bad weather has forced airlines to cancel or delay flights. NBC's Katy Tur reports.

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This is great news.

    Reply#29 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 2:17 PM EST

    For God's sake people its winter time. expect the worse and when it happens your ready.

      Reply#30 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 2:18 PM EST

      I'm with Anil. This is the reason that I moved out to SoCal. Months of painful cold and depression are no longer on my agenda. : )

      • 1 vote
      Reply#31 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 2:30 PM EST

      nothing but whiners back east. we got 2-3 feet out west here. just another winter day.

      get a grip.

        Reply#32 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 2:54 PM EST

        Where the heck is Woodford, VT? I have lived here most of my life and never heard of it!

          Reply#33 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 3:07 PM EST

          You've lived in Woodford VT all your life and never heard of it?

            #33.1 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 3:44 PM EST

            no he's only lived there most of his life, why don't you actually read throuigh what's writttenfirst before you go and make your ignorant tirades so at least they can be factually- based for once

              #33.2 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 4:19 PM EST

              My bad

                #33.3 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 4:45 PM EST
                Reply

                Coldest winter in almost 14 years! I blame Al Gore.

                  Reply#34 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 3:20 PM EST

                  It would appear that very few comments here are actually about the storm. I don't know much about the other topics, so I'll confine myself to discussing the storm.

                  Consider this: Take the train. I know it's a revolutionary idea, but often the trains are running while planes are grounded. Which would you rather, sitting uncomfortably in an airplane terminal not knowing when, or even if, your plane will take off, much less when you can expect to be at your destination; or sitting comfortably in a nice warm train, watching the scenery go by, as you head for your destination in comfort?

                  I've taken the train frequently, up and down both coasts, as well as cross-country on several occasions, and I love the train. It has large seats for comfort, you can move around freely, the food is excellent, and you can belly up to the bar or sit in the observation car and get a unique view of scenery as you pass through the countryside.

                  Just sayin'. Try it, you may well find you like it.

                    Reply#35 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 3:53 PM EST

                    Get your toilet paper (I bought the super market OUT) & get plenty of milk, about 12 gallons should do, & bottled water, around 30 gallons should work for a family of 4. Don't forget to do this every time snow is in the forcast!

                      Reply#36 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 5:32 PM EST

                      UM ,well it is cold...BEAUSE IT'S F***ing WINTER...get use to it!

                        Reply#37 - Thu Dec 27, 2012 7:02 PM EST

                        Good reason to never travel long distance during the holidays.

                          Reply#38 - Fri Dec 28, 2012 12:42 AM EST

                          People are stupid to do such things but maybe that gun was hot and they wanted to get rid of it but can you imagine if that child would gotten hurt by that stupid act and thank God nothing happened by that stupid act.

                          As someone said usually those gifts come unrapped and I don't understand why this didn't happen here but it didn't.

                          As I said I am very glad NOTHING happened to this child.

                            Reply#39 - Fri Dec 28, 2012 8:01 AM EST

                            You are all a bunch of idiots. I don't even know (or care) how I got to these messages.

                            Give people a break. The world is all aglow with fighting, rioting and killing - why can't we learn to be

                            kind to each other? Hmmm!

                              Reply#40 - Fri Dec 28, 2012 3:08 PM EST
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