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[this concerned a timeframe up to about 2:00 NY time. No need to respond now unless you just want to add something. Thanks to those who did respond!]

If you're in New York City, you know what the weather is supposed to do today. I'm seeing forecasts saying that the snow will be light until tonight.

My daughter is flying out of La Guardia this afternoon between 2:00 and 3:00, depending on delays, etc. Anyone willing to venture a guess as to the likelihood of her plane getting out of NYC?

Looks good to me. Now, if she were delayed until tonight, that would be another matter, but according to the weather websites it appears you're not going to get more than about 3 inches this afternoon. But I trust eyes on the ground more than a network of experts reporting from elsewhere... so if anyone happens to catch this over the next couple of hours, let me know what you think.

Shooshie

Hey Shooshie;

I'm about 40 miles away from Laguardia, and it hasn't started here yet. It's just beginning out east on the island.I haven't actually looked at a weather report today.

fwiw

EDIT: Just watched the weather report - moderate snow at Laguardia. Most likely will be delays, but it's not too bad there yet.

Thanks! Looks like she'll probably make it out. The airline is still showing that the plane is on time, and it's only an hour or two away from takeoff. I appreciate the response!

Shooshie

No prob.

It's 1pm here and no snow as of yet. My co-producer's is scheduled to fly from Newark with connections to Santa Barbara at 4pm today. He has gigs 2 gigs tomorrow there. Last night, United cancelled his 6:15 flight and found the new reservations on US Air to leave today. They love to make a giant fuss here over snow storms...

The planes should keep flying until that can't any longer.

5pm still just a dusting(but even that can shut down the airports)

She got out after four o'clock. Shortly afterward they closed LaGuardia. Word has it that all the airports in the region were closed. My daughter called me from LaGuardia while she was waiting and said it was eerie; nobody was there. She'd never seen it so deserted. Outside on the tarmac, she said, the snow was slithering across in ribbons that writhed like snakes. She'd never seen snow do that. I guess I haven't either, though the image is a powerful one, and it's hard to know if that's from having seen it somewhere or just her description of it.

Even those who were getting out found that their connecting flights had been cancelled. My daughter's connecting flight was one of the few that not only hadn't been cancelled, but that would arrive on time. Well, supposedly it will. She's not here yet. But according to the status indicator on the net, her plane is currently taxiing out for takeoff. I think she's going to be here on time.

Very unusual! She somehow just managed to choose the flights that would work on a day like this.

Shooshie

Very glad to hear that, Shooshie. We had planned on going to NYC to see my mom, but ended up in SoCal. As it turned out, she got stranded in CN, so she wouldn't be there for several days at least and we might be sleeping @ LGA or JFK. Not fun.

Last word on my daughter's flight: she arrived at DFW at exactly the originally scheduled time, despite leaving Charlotte an hour late. The pilot said they had a tailwind. Yeah... right. A tailwind called "Yee-hah! Pull those throttles down to 11, baby!"

You know, we tend to talk about things that go wrong. Lord knows I've done my share of sitting in airports, arguing with ticket agents, watching my plans go down as the status board changes my flight number from "on time" to "cancelled." So, watching this transpire today was one of those cases when there just seemed to be a hidden hand making everything work for my daughter.

She called me from the train station in New Haven Saturday morning asking if maybe she should postpone things for another day. I studied the weather for a while and called back and said "looks like your best bet is to go for it. It's going to be worse on Sunday." So, she boarded the train for NYC, and I started calling the airport, the airline, and eventually even posted here, looking for info. She got to NY and there was a delay at Grand Central Station due to the thousands of stranded visitors trying to figure out what to do next. She took a taxi to LaGuardia. LaGuardia was vacant. Flights before and after hers were cancelled, but hers was still on the board and listed as on-time.

Her flight out of LaGuardia got delayed by over an hour, because the captain couldn't get to NYC. When she finally left, they closed the airport and the entire region. Others had learned that they had already missed their connecting flight, but she had left several hours layover in Charlotte in case of this very thing. Her flight in Charlotte was delayed an hour due to some baggage connections not arriving in time. Then they left late, arrived at DFW on time. Had she said nothing to me that morning, I might have picked her up at DFW on time and never known that civilization had been collapsing just moments behind her the whole way.

It's a remarkable case, really. How often does everything go wrong to everyone but you, and you get delayed twice for an hour each time, yet you still arrive on-time? Just bizarre. (and I'm grateful for it!) So nice to have her home.

Shooshie

PS: Kudos for US Airways for getting her here.

Glad it worked out safely for your daughter-- and for her parents!! Sounds like a very long and worrisome day!

Any chance that the Son of Shooshie will find his way home?

I have seen snow snakes Shoo.

Shoosh...Glad she's home with her Mom and Dad.

We're looking forward to our son and (pregnant) daughter-in-law to arrive this Wednesday from Greenville, SC.

It's a bitch when they "grow up" and relocate to distant cities.

Buzzy

buzzsmith wrote:It's a bitch when they "grow up" and relocate to distant cities.

Yeah, what causes that, anyway? I mean, of course I moved away because the middle of the Texas Prairie was such a conducive location for a music career, but I assumed my kids would stay close by, since it's the center of the world. What's the East Coast or Colorado got that Dallas doesn't have?

Glad your family is going to be home for a bit, Buzzy.

Shoosh