Bad Weather Could Wreak Havoc on Busiest Travel Day Sunday

[bonanzabucks]

It wasn't just the East coast. My flight to DEN was delayed because of a snowstorm there.

[LGA777]

Took off 45 minutes late today at EWR due to having to be de-iced. It was barely even snowing (more raining) and the ambient air temp was over 32 degrees, so I'm not really sure why we went and got deiced, but I guess better safe than sorry...

While probably the same at EWR at LGA Sunday morning we (US) ended up deicing around 20 aircraft in the 0730-0930 time frame and that was totally unexpected. Most of the precip was ice pellets mixed with snow. Ice pellets are much worse than snow or any other form of frozen precip as far as being restrictve in regards to air carrier operations.

I ended up working a looong double shift Sunday and by early evening the three major area airports had Ground Delay Programs causing delays in the 3 to 4 hour range. Around 2330 we where looking at flightaware.com and the map showing all the aircraft in the air bound for LGA was amazing. There where multiple flights just departing airports such as DEN, DFW, and IAH. When I left around midnight the airport was still expectiing over 100 arrivals. They don't call it "Black Sunday" for nothing !

LGA777