Storms Bearing Down on Holiday Travelers

Snow draped the iconic Las Vegas sign Wednesday, a rare event for this party city in the desert. But there was 3.6 inches of snow, a record there for December and a portent, perhaps, of the wacky and wool-sweater weather to blow throughout the rest of the country.

A stiff storm moving from the Southwest is expected to bring snow and icy conditions to the Midwest on Thursday night, and eventually begin to dump its contents on Pennsylvania and the New York area Friday by late morning, providing headaches, delays and cancellations for holiday travelers.

A snowfall of only 3.6 inches, while a calamitous event in Las Vegas, would be welcome in New York. The tristate area is under a Winter Storm Warning, with 4 to 8 inches expected on Friday, probably starting after 10 a.m. and turning heavy by the afternoon.

Ross Dickman, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in New York, warned that commuters planning to go to work Friday not to be fooled by the decent morning conditions because they will deteriorate quickly by the afternoon. Was he advising workers to take a snow day?

“It would be recommended,” he said.

Already many of the major airlines are offering travel waivers
for the New York area through Friday on their web sites, allowing customers to change their tickets without fees.

“It is a fast-mover,” Mr. Dickman said. “So even though we are going to experience intense precipitation, it will look like everything’s breaking loose, but then it’s going to be over.”

But residents of New England should not exhale for long. After a respite on Saturday, another strong storm is expected to hit the area on Sunday.

For New Hampshire, the bad news is accumulating. Approximately 44,000 residents are still without electricity because of last Friday’s ice storm.

“A northeaster, that’s the last thing we need,” Gary Long, the president of Public Service of New Hampshire, said in a telephone interview. “But as bad as it is, even a northeaster is not as bad as the frozen ice we had. That’s the worst-case scenario.”

At the storm’s peak last Friday, more than 322,000 customers were without power. Downed poles and power lines forced the state’s largest utility provider to scramble. About 30,000 people had power restored on Wednesday thanks to the more than 2,000 utility workers, 725 crews, who worked 24 hours a day to repair service, Mr. Long said.

New poles were brought in on 17 flatbed trucks from North Carolina, along with other materials.

One snow storm, let alone two, could delay crews driving around New Hampshire, further hindering restoration of power — especially in the more rural areas in the southwest part of the state.

Amtrak just restored full service to its Empire line trains Tuesday evening after the ice storm played havoc with the signals. But, like the utility providers in New Hampshire, Amtrak officials welcomed the news of snow rather than another ice storm.

“Anytime we get inclement weather and large amounts of snow, we gear up our crews on the tracks to make sure the tracks are clear,” said Cliff Cole, an Amtrak spokesman. Ice, he said, is obviously more problematic.

The nation’s airport hubs from the Midwest to the Northeast braced for the terrible weather to kick off holiday traveling.

A spokesman for Metropolitan Airport in Detroit, Michael Conway, said that the expected arrival time of the storm at 4 a.m. “doesn’t help.”

“It would be better if the majority of the snow was during the night,” he said.

Detroit Metro has six runways, with three parallel runways active at most times. Even with 6 to 10 inches of snow expected, Mr. Conway said the airport “would still have really good capacity” to operate. He urged passengers to check their airlines’ web sites.

The Chicago airports were also mobilizing employees who operate snow equipment so they can be available for longer shifts.

In Chicago, the web site for the airport system lists a Winter Storm Warning from the National Weather Service, with a Hazardous Weather Outlook.

The people at the National Weather Service in Las Vegas were downright giddy over the Pacific Storm system coming off the coast of Southern California. It mixed with the already cold temperatures to cause a meteorological phenomenon. “LAS VEGAS HITS THE JACKPOT FOR SNOW IN DECEMBER,” the headline on the web site read.

The Las Vegas Journal-Review reported that schools in Clark County were canceled Thursday. And the snow removal equipment in Clark County, the newspaper reported, consisted of “two snow plows, two snow blowers and two graders” and Wednesday night they were all “on the outskirts of Southern Nevada.”

Most departing flights were grounded Wednesday night and arriving flights were canceled at McCarran International Airport. Airlines resumed their operations by 6 a.m. Las Vegas time Thursday morning.

Nearly every part of the country will be affected by storms by Friday. On Thursday, the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was experiencing delays of up to 1 hour 45 minutes.

Despite the snow, ice and fog expected to blanket much of the United States, one place will not be affected by a grim forecast: Florida.

Good luck getting there.