Wintry weather temporarily loosened its grip across much of the U.S. just in time for Thanksgiving, after tangling holiday travelers in wind, ice and snow and before more major storms descend Friday.
There were some exceptions to the respite, particularly involving California´s main north-south Highway 5, which was shut down in Southern California early Thursday as heavy snow softly blanketed the region.
But high winds that had ripped a wooden sign from scaffolding on Chicago´s Willis Tower and nearly felled the Christmas Tree to close Cleveland´s Public Square Wednesday were calm enough by Thursday morning to allow the Macy´s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York to proceed, albeit with balloons flying at lower levels.
The National Weather Service predicted things could get dicey – if not impassable – for holiday travelers´ trips home.
Forecasters have still warned against travel Friday night through Saturday night in a stretch of country from northeast Wyoming to northwest South Dakota due to expected blizzard conditions.
Around a dozen flights had already been cancelled early Thursday, according to FlightAware data, with almost 200 delayed across the country.
It comes after more than 300,000 homes were left without power overnight in the Great Lakes region during a powerful storm, with Michigan and Ohio the worst hit.
Drivers along Interstate 5 in California also reported being trapped in cars overnight after a deluge of snow caused by a ‘bomb cyclone’ forced more than 100 miles of road to close.
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Drivers said they were stranded in their cars overnight along Interstate 5 in California as a ‘bomb cyclone’ storm caused a deluge of snow which closed more than 100 miles of roads
The National Weather service issued a turbulence warning for the East Coast early Thursday, with 14 flights cancelled and more than 200 delayed through the morning
Those in the Midwest and West Coast were warned of heavy snow (left) and potential flash flooding on Thanksgiving, while those in the Great Lakes and pars of the East Coast were told to beware of high winds
At one point Wednesday night the weather was so chaotic that 32 states had advisories out. Forecasters warned that conditions are not likely to improve through the weekend (pictured, weather warnings in effect from Saturday)
In Kansas and Colorado, the same storm shuttered part of the I-70 and was so dangerous the highway patrol urged residents not to leave their homes.
‘Stay put. Doesn’t look like fun,’ Trooper Tod Hileman warned.
Across the country, more than 600 flights had been canceled and 4,753 were delayed by Thursday morning.
There was also chaos on the roads. Drivers reported being stuck for 17 or more hours in blizzard conditions and some spent the night in their vehicles overnight on Tuesday. The road only reopened late on Wednesday evening.
‘We’ve been white knuckling it for the last four hours and sliding around the road,’ said Lisa Chadwick after she stopped in Bend, Oregon, driving north from San Francisco.
She had snowchains for her two-wheel drive car, but did not know how to put them on.
Stranded cars made it difficult for plows to clear the freeway. I-5 was closed in both directions late Tuesday because of the storm, but the southbound lanes reopened at Ashland, Oregon early Wednesday.
The northbound lanes of Interstate 5 reopened on Wednesday evening heading from Redding, California, all the way to the Oregon border.
Meanwhile, Southern California is bracing for heavy rains over the next two days that could bring flash flooding.
Long Beach, Malibu, Rancho Palos Verdes, Van Nuys, and Whittier are expected to see some flooding on Thursday, according to NBC Los Angeles.
Authorities have also issued a wind chill alert, as temperatures in some sections of Los Angeles County could dip to 32 degree Fahrenheit.
The Midwest was also hit hard by a storm that clobbered Denver on Tuesday, with airports in Minneapolis and Chicago suffering hundreds of delays and cancellations.
The storms hit on one of the busiest travel days of the year, with a near-record 55 million Americans set to journey at least 50 miles for Thanksgiving on Thursday, according to the American Automobile Association.
A total of 32 states – two-thirds of the Continental United States – remains under a storm watch or advisory.
Another major storm is expected to descend on the West Coast over Tuesday and Wednesday, bringing ‘bomb cyclone’ conditions with over two feet of snow to the mountains in the Northwest and possible flash flooding in Southern California
Record-low temperatures are expected in several major cities on Thanksgiving thanks to the first of the two storm systems
The second storm brought snow to the mountains and wind and rain along the coasts of California and Oregon on Tuesday. It’s expected to move inland by the weekend
After parts of Colorado got up to 30 inches of snow on Tuesday, Minneapolis was expected to get as much as 12 inches as the system slid east, said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.
The storm, which is packing high winds, will move across upper Michigan and upstate New York toward central Maine, which could get six to 10 inches of snow, the Weather Service forecast.
On the West Coast, heavy rain threatened flash floods from San Diego to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles International Airport told domestic passengers to arrive three hours early as it expected 238,000 passengers and 113,000 vehicles on Wednesday.
‘There has been definitely lots of honking, lots of near accidents that I’ve seen, for sure,’ Daniel Julien, a 24-year-old paralegal from Pasadena, said after making it to the airport.
A silver lining was that rain doused the Cave Fire in Santa Barbara County, which charred 7 square miles of brush and woodlands.
But it brought evacuation warnings to thousands of residents in Santa Barbara suburbs for possible mudslides on fire-charred hills.
On Thanksgiving Day, a second wave of the storm is expected to bring more intense rain and snow across the state of California, the Los Angeles Times reported.
At last one to two inches of rain is expected in coastal and valley areas, with up to three inches in the foothills and at lower elevations in the mountains.
Across the country on Wednesday, 4,083 flights were delayed, and 148 were canceled into or out of the United States by 6.30pm Eastern Standard Time, with Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport tallying the most, according to FlightAware.com.
‘There are apocalyptic storms all over the country and 50mph winds! Why would things not be the worst. Anyway pray 4 me,’ said a Twitter user going by the name of Abigail H., who was leaving O’Hare on Wednesday.
The East Coast was largely unscathed, but wind gusts of up to 40 mph forecast for Thursday morning threatened to sideline the Macy’s New York City Thanksgiving parade’s 16 giant balloons for safety reasons.
Organizers have said they will make the decision on Thursday whether to go ahead.
