Winter Storm to Hamper Travel Across the Midwest on Christmas Eve
One winter storm will sweep across the Midwest on Christmas Eve and into the Northeast on Christmas Day. Meanwhile, another winter storm will begin its trek across the US starting in Oregon and Washington. These storms will provide a White Christmas to many in the northern US — and unfortunately they also may amper travel across the region on a critical travel day before Christmas. That is all happening while a record 107.3 million Americans are expected to travel between December 23 and January 1, according to AAA.
While we haven't seen any major delays yet Sunday morning, three large airports are expected to suffer major impacts from the storms: Chicago O'Hare, (ORD), Portland (PDX) and Cleveland (CLE). Lesser impacts are expected at other airports across the Midwest and Northwest:
The forecast calls for the first storm — named Ethan by The Weather Channel — to drop over 12 inches of snow in parts of the Northeast on Christmas Eve and into Christmas Day. Some large cities (Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland) will get a few inches of snow, while others (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC) will avoid the snowfall entirely:
Meanwhile a new storm will start sweeping across Washington and Oregon. Rain, sleet, freezing rain, and/or snow will drop depending on the elevation and prevailing temperature. Portland and Seattle are the two airports most likely to be affected by this storm Christmas Eve.
It's all going to add up to a large swath of the country waking up on the 25th to a White Christmas — which meteorologists define as having one inch of snow cover on the morning of December 25, whether or not it snows that day:
