Storms Affects South, Northeast Thanksgiving Travel
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Live pictures now of New York and Atlanta. Also, the map there, you can see the South is getting soaked at the moment, the north bracing for the nasty winter storm that's headed that way.</s>GORANI: And here are the numbers. You might be one of them. Forty-three million people, all set to travel during the Thanksgiving holiday, and the deadly, because it has been deadly, weather threatens to ruin many of those plans. Welcome back to "</s>AROUND THE WORLD". HOLMES: And we are covering the storm and how it will affect your holiday travel plans like no one else. We've got crews in position right across the country. You can see there, Shannon Travis in Virginia, Rene Marsh at Dulles International Airport, Chad Myers, monitoring flights across the country from the CNN Weather Center.</s>GORANI: OK, let's go live to Shannon Travis. He's been driving through a wintry mix of snow and rain across Pennsylvania. There he is on the side of the road. All right, the conditions out there near Pittsburgh so far, Shannon.</s>SHANNON TRAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the conditions, the snow has been coming down. And, you know, Hala, when we were driving in, it was pretty much an annoying rain, but when we got here, when we arrived, it was as if Mother Nature said, "Welcome," to this wicked winter mess. The area's under a winter storm warning right now. As you mentioned, we're about 20 miles outside of Pittsburgh. We're in a place called Irwin. And we've just essentially just been kind of monitoring how much snowfall we've been seeing since we've been out here. I'm just going to use an unofficial ruler, my finger. We estimated about three inches of snow right here in this area. I've spoken with officials at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. They tell me about 80-plus trucks and 135 crews are going to be out, in force, tonight, working 12-hour shifts apiece.</s>GORANI: Shannon Travis, thanks very much, with the latest from Pennsylvania. You got a sense there in the background how nasty it is and how nasty it might get, even worse.</s>HOLMES: That sort of wet cold. If you're flying out after a major airport, here's a tip. Gets the crossword puzzles out or Angry Birds or whatever it is you do.</s>GORANI: Or "Very Angry Birds?"</s>HOLMES: "Very Angry Birds," that aren't flying, because flight delays are averaging as long as four hours, starting tomorrow. And you can see right there, some of the spots where there could be problems today.</s>GORANI: And there you have it, pretty much a diagonal line from Atlanta to Baltimore. Rene Marsh is the an Dulles International Airport outside Washington. Rene?</s>RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well, I can tell you, that is the word we're hearing over and over again for the situation at airports across the country, essentially up and down the eastern seaboard, is delay, delay, delay. And we're seeing more delays than we're seeing cancellations at this point. Rough estimate, according to many websites that track the flights around the country, more than 1,600 delays at this point.</s>MARSH: Been there, done that. Dulles Airport revved up these snow plows during the last snowstorm in March. Today, Dulles and airports up and down the East Coast are prepared to do the same, if it comes to it.</s>ROB YINGLING, METRO WASHINGTON AIRPORTS AUTHORITY: So far the forecast seems to be pointing towards a nuisance storm from our perspective, one that's not going to result in severe cancellations, but more so, delays.</s>MARSH: But still, it could be a nightmare for some flyers.</s>DANIEL BAKER, FLIGHTAWARE.COM: We see a lot of delays and we see a lot of cancellations with storms like this.</s>MARSH: Daniel Baker runs the flight tracking Web site, flightaware.com. He says making matters worst, planes are already full.</s>BAKER: The issue they run into is that if you cancel one flight, there may not be capacity on later flights to accommodate all of the displaced passengers.</s>MARSH: Twenty-five million people are traveling by air this Thanksgiving holiday up 1.5 percent from last year.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We decided to leave early, and we're just keeping our fingers crossed.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hopefully we'll be there and all right and still able to visit family and enjoy our week.</s>MARSH: Busiest travel day? The Sunday after Thanksgiving. The second busiest day? Tomorrow. Just in time for the storm.</s>BAKER: What I always say is, have a low expectation when traveling through bad weather on the airlines, particularly around the holidays, and you won't be disappointed.</s>MARSH: All right. So the big question is, does tomorrow look any better for the flyers? And the answer, sadly is no. We are expecting even more delays tomorrow, wind going to be a big issue. Back to you.</s>HOLMES: All right. Rene Marsh, thanks so much there at Dulles Airport. I tell you, I've got to say, that's the first time in years I can say I'm glad I'm going to be working Thanksgiving and not flying.</s>GORANI: And not flying anywhere. I kind of feel the same way. Some overseas visitors to the U.S. might end up spending a little bit more if they're here already, a little more time stateside than they had planned.</s>HOLMES: Yeah, let's have a look now at how the storm is throwing a wrench in international travel plans. Chad Myers, you've got more on that. I suppose a lot of the Atlanta flights go direct, but if you're going through New York or up in the northeast, whoa.</s>CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Today is OK. Only -- I only have six delays out of JFK. That's really the international departure out of the northeast. And there's only six delays and none of them are to international destinations. Great here. But Atlanta, international airport, as well, there's about 60 delays. Now these are arrival delays just coming in from Orlando, Wichita, Charlotte, Gulfport. These are just about 20-minute delays. And I can go down and down and just switch and down and down and down and down, and you'll see the word delay, delay, delay, delay, delay. This is a great app. It's called FlightBoard. It's 10 bucks. We all buy it here because you can actually see what the flight looks like at almost any airport. I can click here and I can see Washington, D.C., so here's the arrival delays out of Dulles and out of -- here's Nashville. This one has arrived, arrived, arrived. So this is kind of a good thing. If you're going to be flying and you want to see all the other airports and maybe look at all the other misery, you won't have to feel so by yourself, this is something else you can take a look at, too. Might help you get around. Something else I don't think people have been talking about very much is, I think you should be carrying your bags on the plane if you can. If you get diverted, canceled, moved, you can grab your bag and go to a different gate rather than they have to find your bag and move it someplace else. At least you'll have some clothes when you get to where you're going.</s>HOLMES: Yeah. Yeah, cool tip, a very good idea. I hate checking bags in.</s>GORANI: You know how flexible the airlines are with the checked -- with cabin luggage.</s>HOLMES: Yeah, exactly.</s>GORANI: All right, thanks very much, Chad Myers, reporting from the CNN Center, Rene Marsh at Dulles, Shannon Travis in Virginia. We'll continue to follow this story for you.</s>HOLMES: Yeah, and for the latest on the weather and a look at the world's busiest airport, this is a terrific thing. Check out CNN.com/interactive. Have a look at ATL24 there.</s>GORANI: Plus, we'll bring you live weather updates throughout the day, right here on CNN. And, also, keep in mind you can look at the bottom of your screen for weather across the country. We'll have more on this throughout the day, as well. Coming up, "The People's Pope."</s>HOLMES: Yeah, he is shaking up the Catholic Church, but will the church follow his lead? We will discuss when we come back.