Holiday Travel Nightmare Will Affect Millions

I'm kind of starting to "zone out" listening to slow Christmas music as we near my last day in the office before a two-week Christmas Break, so I'm not really sure what to blog about this afternoon. (Don't worry, I'll still be blogging from home during this "vacation"!).

I think the main point to get across today is how extreme this winter weather pattern is, and how big of a nightmare it could turn into for Holiday travelers here in the U.S. We talked about this fact this morning in the Operational meeting, where the forecasters, bloggers, news & video folks and PR people get together to talk about what the big stories are (I sometimes post some inside info from this meeting on the Forums). This weather pattern is unusual because both coasts are being affected by a "train" of winter storms this week, and next week -- this is as busy as we get here in the winter at AccuWeather, Inc.

The main problem is going to be Holiday travel. We could see travel disruption at levels not seen in years. Our news story says that 64 million people will travel this Holiday season, and a large portion of them will run into trouble. Many people are starting to leave this weekend to be with their families, states away, and we've got two major storm systems in the Northeast alone! And I'm not just talking snow, but there will be a good bit of ice too (hard to tell where and how much yet - if the Harrisburg, Philly, Northern NJ and NYC areas are affected as show on the map above, we could have hundreds of thousands of customers without power).

Tomorrow's system is going to affect some big cities -- Chicago, Detroit, New York City and Boston - that's over 11 million people! (WikiPedia) One of the things that Elliot brought up is that the storm will affect Boston (and to a lesser extent, a little earlier, New York City).

The West is out of control too, with record cold and unusually low-elevation snow in California causing low natural gas inventories... rare snow in Las Vegas, and more unusual snow near the shore in the Pacific Northwest. Add to that bone-chilling cold and potential snow storm on Christmas Eve in the Northeast... it's going to be a newsworthy week.

Fore continued updates on the travel disruptions, see our Breaking Weather News Story (PREMIUM | PRO). For more about the Las Vegas snow, read Elliot Abrams (PREMIUM | PRO), and for more on the Pacific Northwest, which has been getting unusual snowfall, see Ken Clark (PREMIUM | PRO).