ATLANTA — Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed Tuesday, one day after powerful storms swept across the eastern half of the country and upended air travel in a cross-section of cities. Travelers have been facing additional jams at airport security checkpoints as a partial government shutdown strains screener staffing.
Mount Arvon, Michigan, saw 39 inches of snow, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, got more than 26 inches, according to the National Weather Service in Green Bay.
The storms also ushered in cold temperatures, with cities in the east 20 to 35 degrees colder than yesterday. Washington D.C., for example, dropped 26 degrees in just 90 minutes on Monday.
The airport disruptions come at an already challenging time for air travel, in part because the shutdown that began Feb. 14 has pressured staffing at some security checkpoints. At the same time, airports are crowded with spring break travelers and fans heading to March Madness games, the annual NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments.
More than 750 flights scheduled to fly into, out of or within the U.S. have been called off as of early Tuesday, and about 1,300 were delayed, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.
Flight delays and cancellations piled up Monday at some of the nation’s largest airports, including those in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. The storm system that dumped heavy snow across the Midwest raced toward the East Coast with high winds reaching gusts near 50 mph (80 km) in parts of New York, the National Weather Service said.
Strong winds will continue Tuesday with 34 million people still under wind alerts across the Appalachians, interior Northeast and New England. This will lead to additional travel delays until the winds relax this afternoon and evening.
Wind gusts up to 49 mph are possible in Buffalo, while Philadelphia and New York could see gusts around 35 mph.
Freeze alerts are in place across the south for 42 million people from central Texas to coastal South Carolina. This cold air means more light snow is possible across the Great Lakes and Appalachians on Tuesday.
Snowfall will be generally light, except on the Tug Hill Plateau, which could see 6-8 inches.
Kelly Price, who was trying to get home to Colorado after a family vacation in Orlando, Florida, said her Sunday night flight wasn’t canceled until early Monday.
“By that time the only place for us to sleep was the airport floor. So we’re all tired and frustrated,” she said, adding that the soonest she and her family could book another flight doesn’t leave until Tuesday afternoon.
Impact to major airport hubs
The nationwide cancellations on Monday included about 600 in and out of Chicago O’Hare International, more than 470 at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International and over 450 at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, according to FlightAware.
Citing severe weather, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered ground stops at Hartsfield-Jackson and Charlotte Douglas International Airport and ground delays at JFK and Newark Liberty International Airport.
Danielle Cash found herself stranded in St. Louis on Sunday while trying to get home to Tampa, Florida, after a weekend girls’ trip to Las Vegas. Now she’s spending several hundred dollars more than planned on a hotel room in a snowy city she wasn’t dressed for.
“It was 80 degrees in Tampa when I left and then going to Vegas,” she said. “And it was 90 degrees in the desert.”
Cash said she’s now booked on a flight to Tennessee before returning to Tampa by Tuesday afternoon.
TSA staffing strains some checkpoints
The storms unfolded just as airport security screeners missed their first full paycheck over the weekend. The current partial government shutdown affects only the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Transportation Security Administration.
Democrats in Congress have said Homeland Security won’t get funded until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year.
It is the third shutdown in less than a year, leaving TSA workers temporarily without pay. Once the government reopens, employees will have to wait for back pay.
Some airports have reported longer security lines because of staffing shortages as more TSA workers take on second jobs, can’t afford gas to get to work or leave the profession altogether. Homeland Security has said more than 300 TSA agents have quit since the start of the shutdown.
Security wait times could worsen
TSA union leaders in Atlanta held a news conference Monday outside Hartsfield-Jackson, warning that air travelers could face increasingly long wait times as the shutdown continues. Even so, union leaders said, many officers are still reporting to work despite mounting financial strain.
Many TSA workers “are coping with eviction notices, vehicle repossessions, empty refrigerators and overdrawn bank accounts,” said Aaron Barker, a local leader with the American Federation of Government Employees. Supporters behind him held signs reading, “We want a paycheck, not a rain check.”
Travelers flying out of New Orleans on Sunday and Monday were advised to arrive at least three hours early “due to impacts from the federal government’s partial shutdown,” Louis Armstrong International Airport said on X. And the airport in Austin, Texas, shared a video on X taken at 5:30 a.m. local time showing the security line spilling out onto the sidewalk outside.
Back in Atlanta, Mel Stewart and his wife arrived four hours earlier than usual for their flight out of Hartsfield-Jackson to make up for longer TSA lines.
“I think it’s being politicized way too much — way too much,” Stewart said Monday of the shutdown. “And these people are working. They work hard, and for TSA people not to get paid, that’s silly.”
Historic March heat wave begins
While parts of the country are freezing, others are sweltering.
Heat alerts are in place for 38 million people from the Bay Area to southern Arizona, including Extreme Heat Warnings.
This is the first time the Bay Area has been under a heat advisory in March. Phoenix is experiencing its earliest heat warning by over a month.
This extreme heat so early in the year will lead to an excess in heat illness, because people are not yet acclimated to these high temperatures following the winter months.
Redwood City, California, hit 90 degrees on Monday, making it the first of many cities that will likely see new all-time hottest March high temperature records.
Major cities that could set their March record include: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver and Salt Lake City.
It’s not just individual cities that could set all-time March temperature records; state and national records could be broken as well. State records to watch for include California, Arizona and Nevada.
A forecast of 114 degrees in Mecca, California, would break the U.S. record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in March and April.
