There were more than 3,700 flight delays and cancellations within, into or out of the U.S. just after 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday, according to FlightAware, as arctic cold temperatures and conditions continued across the country.
An American Airlines flight information board shows multiple canceled flights in Terminal 1 of ... [+]
About 1,670 flights were canceled just after 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday, and 2,126 were delayed—both numbers that will likely continue to increase throughout the day due to extreme cold weather.
Denver International Airport has the most flights canceled Monday morning, both inbound and outbound, followed by Chicago O’Hare and two Texas airports, Houston Bush and Dallas-Fort Worth.
Alaska Airlines canceled 155 flights Monday morning, or 22% of its scheduled flights, while Southwest canceled 16%—638 total— and United canceled 11%, or 282 flights, according to FlightAware.
Temperatures will likely be coldest in the Plains states, with the Weather Service predicting wind chills could hit -30 in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska and -50 in Montana and the Dakotas for another day before warming up slightly around Wednesday—but dropping again in the Midwest and Deep South by Friday.
Ice and snow are dangerous for planes as ice can stick to and “seriously hamper the function of” wings, control surfaces, propellers and and can make it more difficult to land and take off, according to the NWS, and the Federal Aviation Administration reports that ice can make planes “stall at much higher speeds and lower angles of attack than normal.”
102 million. That’s how many people were at risk of wind chill around 6 a.m. Eastern on Monday, NBC News reported, citing the National Weather Service. Additionally, 72 million were under winter weather advisories and about 22 million were under a winter storm warning.
The National Weather Service said early Monday morning that most of the lower 48 states can expect cold temperatures and “wintry weather” throughout Tuesday before “another Arctic blast” comes later in the week. On Sunday, parts of Montana had temperatures near -60 degrees with wind chill, Illinois saw -40 degrees with wind chill and temperatures were near -9 with wind chill near Dallas, the NWS said. On Friday there were around 11,000 delays and cancellations, at least in part due to the “life threatening” winter weather conditions, and Saturday saw about 8,900 and Sunday saw about 9,300, according to FlightAware. The cold weather, ice and snow leading to thousands of cancellations worsened the travel week for airlines that were employing Boeing 737-Max 9 planes with “plug doors,” which had been grounded since last weekend after an inflight issue on an Alaska Airlines flight in which a jet door blew off mid-flight.
“Dangerously cold temperatures” are expected to continue across much of the country through Tuesday, according to the NWS, with snow and freezing rain hitting the southern U.S. and snowfall expected in Washington D.C, Philadelphia and New York later Monday into Tuesday.
The Iowa Caucus is Monday night—and the event will go on despite Des Moines having expected temperatures with wind chill as low as -30, according to the National Weather Service. The Des Moines Register reported this will likely be the coldest Iowa Caucus in history, beating the 1972 caucus that saw wind chill temperatures hit -26 degrees.