Major winter storm on track to impact post-Thanksgiving travel for millions

PHILADELPHIA, PA (CBS) — A lot of snow, rain and cold weather await travelers for the rest of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with winter storm warnings posted Friday across the northern part of the country and more snow falling over the Great Lakes region.

Storm warnings and advisories extended from Montana to New York, the National Weather Service said.

“Anybody out shopping for Black Friday in these areas from Cleveland to upstate New York and even into New England are going to deal with some issues out on the roadways,” CBS News Philadelphia meteorologist Andrew Kozak said. Up to 42 million people could be impacted by the storm, he said, as the system moves across the northern Plains.

More than 81.8 million people were predicted to travel 50 miles or more during the Thanksgiving holiday period, AAA said. The Transportation Security Administration said the agency is planning to screen more than 3 million travelers on Sunday. Adam Stahl, the senior official performing the duties of the deputy TSA administrator, said in a statement, “We are projecting that the Sunday after Thanksgiving will be one of the busiest travel days in TSA history.”

Snow was expected to start Friday and last well into the weekend in some areas with Iowa and Illinois getting the brunt of it. Six inches to a foot of snow is expected in much of west-central Illinois on Friday night through Saturday night.

Chicago — a huge travel hub — could see anywhere from 8 to 12 inches of snow or even more, Kozak said. That could have a domino effect for the major airports. Heavy snow is forecast for Saturday, he said.

Airlines for America, the trade association for the leading U.S. airlines, predicted that carriers will fly a record 31 million passengers from last Friday through this coming Monday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday that the TSA is back to staffing levels from before the government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, which led to reductions in flights.

So far, forecast conditions do not meet blizzard warning criteria, meteorologists said — winds of at least 35 mph, visibilities of less than a quarter mile and lasting more than three hours.

A storm that already brought snow to parts of the northern Plains states and the Great Lakes region continued Friday. Snowfall totals of at least a foot were expected by the end of the storm, particularly downwind of Lake Superior across the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan and downwind of lakes Erie and Ontario, the weather service said. Areas of central New York state could see a foot of snow. Gusty winds may lead to periods of blowing snow with hazardous post-Thanksgiving travel conditions expected, the weather service said. Below-average and chilly temperatures are expected to hit most of the eastern and central U.S. heading into the weekend.

Snow squalls Friday are forecast to bring quick bursts of heavy snow and dangerous, whiteout conditions for driving were possible across the interior Northeast, the weather service said.

In the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies, a combination of snow and rain was expected Friday. By Saturday, the snow will taper off for the Rockies and northern Plains, but continue on to the Midwest. Conditions are expected to improve overnight into Sunday morning in the Midwest, as rain hits the Northeast. Kozak said that the I-95 corridor will miss the “big snow” through the end of the weekend.

To the south, storms — some of them heavy — are in the forecast, with some flash flooding possible Saturday in the western Gulf Coast.