Jan. 31—The giant winter storm blanketing North and Central Texas this week is now wreaking havoc at airports. More than 500 inbound or outbound flights from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and another 125 from Dallas Love Field were canceled or delayed Tuesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.
FlightAware also reported that 300-plus Southwest Airlines flights alone have been canceled Tuesday and nearly 100 more have been delayed. The Dallas-based airlines' mass-cancellations follow a holiday meltdown that saw more than 2,000 of Southwest's flights canceled amid catastrophic operations failures. As of this writing, 54 flights out of Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport scheduled for Tuesday have been cancelled and 104 flights have been marked as delayed by FlightAware. South of town, Houston's Hobby Airport has cancelled 48 flights and delayed 27 more in connection to inclement weather in the state.
Much of Texas is under a winter storm warning until 6 a.m. Thursday, as a massive storm stretching from Texas to Virginia is dropping freezing rain and sleet on cities from Dallas down to Austin. The wintry precipitation combined with sustained below-freezing temperatures are causing chaos on Texas roadways as well Tuesday, with one death already reported from a 10-car pile up in Austin, according to KXAN.
"Travel conditions will continue to worsen today with even more ice and sleet. Avoid traveling if you can through Wednesday," The National Weather Service's Dallas-Fort Worth office wrote in a tweet Tuesday. "If you have to be on the roads, make sure to SLOW DOWN, watch for ice on the road, and to give yourself plenty of time for driving," NWS continued.
The warning includes several counties north of Houston, with several more included in a less urgent winter weather advisory. "As you drive west and north of Houston, particularly past Katy, Waller, and Huntsville, icing may start to become a concern on elevated roads and bridges tonight," Space City Weather's Eric Berger wrote in his Tuesday morning forecast. "Those concerns will become more acute to the west of Columbus and northwest of College Station where conditions will be colder," Berger added.
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