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Winter storm cancels 1,400 flights
Storm impacts flights, arctic blast on the way
Below-freezing temperatures to sweep US 00:54
Story highlights
- A storm system is expected to bring more lake-effect snow through Monday
- An arctic blast on Tuesday will start in the Plains, affect the Midwest by Wednesday and stretch down to the Southeast
(CNN)A
winter storm moving through the Great Lakes region dumped snow in the
Midwest and led to the cancellation of more than 1,400 flights Sunday in
Chicago.
In nearby Detroit, a plane slid off a runway into the grass and snow.
Parts
of the nation felt the effects of the cold weather on Sunday, as
another arctic blast is expected to hit just about half the country this
week.
"Not only are we seeing a
one-two punch of arctic air, we will see a third punch of arctic air,"
said Haley Brink, a meteorologist with CNN Weather. "And until the Great
Lakes freeze over, we will continue to see heavy lake-effect snow now
impacting these areas."
Another
storm system will bring more lake-effect snow through Monday, resulting
in the first major snowstorm of the year for the Great Lakes and
Northeast, Brink said.
That
system could dump an additional 3 to 6 inches of snow from the Great
Lakes to New York and central and northern New England, she said.
In Fowlerville, Michigan, a 40-car pileup Thursday on Interstate 96 killed at least three people.
On Saturday, about 100
light-rail passengers were stranded in the cold and dark after a
high-voltage power line tumbled on the tracks as an ice storm struck
Portland, Oregon.
Passengers were stuck for at least three hours before firefighters could rescue them early Saturday, CNN affiliate KATU-TV reported. No one was injured.
According to Flightaware.com,
more than 1,200 flights were canceled at Chicago's O'Hare International
Airport and close to 200 were canceled at Midway as inclement weather
hit the city. The National Weather Service had a winter storm warning in
effect through Sunday evening for Chicago.
'You could feel it slide'
Shortly
before noon on Sunday, Delta Flight 274 inbound from Buffalo, New York,
skidded off the runway after it landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport,
CNN affiliate WXYZ reported.
"It
had landed and it was in the process of turning off the runway and onto
a taxi runway when it left the runway and went into the grass and
snow," Delta spokesman Anthony Black said.
Isaac
Price, a passenger aboard Flight 274, told CNN the plane seemed to be
landing fine "and then you could feel it slide and it went into the
bushes."
"Everyone wasn't exactly
sure what was going on but we were pretty calm. There were no
announcements from the pilot and flight crew until we abruptly stopped
in the snowy grass," said Price, who was traveling with his brother,
returning from the MLS Cup championships in Toronto.
Price
added: "They told us to stay seated and then firetrucks came racing,
and they were trying to figure out if they could tow the plane. That
didn't work so they ended up opening the back of the plane and they put
us on buses to take us back to the terminal."
Price said the whole process took about an hour and he and his brother missed their connecting flight to Seattle.
Black said 65 passengers and five crew members were on board the MD-88 aircraft, which was about half full. No one was hurt.
Brink said Detroit recorded 6.5 inches of snow on Sunday.
More snow
Lake-effect snow started Thursday along the southern and eastern shores of the Great Lakes and lasted through Saturday morning.
Brink
said the system that is bringing more snow from the Great Lakes to the
northeast may change to rain by Monday afternoon, as high temperatures
climb above freezing.
Despite
Monday's snowfall, the east coast could see close to average
temperatures for this time of year, which are highs in the upper 30s to
low-40s, she said.
The next arctic
blast on Tuesday will start in the northern plains and affect the
Midwest by Wednesday, stretching down to the southeast, Brink said.
Temperatures in the Midwest will be 20 to 30 degrees below normal high
temperatures Wednesday into Thursday, she said.
Brink said by Thursday, high temperatures for the Southeast could be 10 to 15 degrees below normal.
According
to meteorologist Ryan Maue, the upper-level atmosphere configuration
looks similar in scale and magnitude to the January 2014 "polar vortex" that left the country in below-average temperatures for days.
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