Holiday’s end to present travel mess

A powerful storm making its way east from California is disrupting the year’s busiest travel weekend, and the intensifying snow and ice had the potential to thwart millions of people’s plans to return home after Thanksgiving.

The storm caused the death of at least one person in South Dakota and shut down highways in the western U.S., stranding drivers in California and prompting authorities in Arizona to plead with travelers to wait out the weather before attempting to travel.

The storm was expected to track east through the weekend — into the Midwest by today and the Northeast on Sunday — pummeling a huge portion of the country with snow, ice or flash flooding.

The National Weather Service said travel could become impossible in some places.

The weather could be particularly disruptive on Sunday, when millions of holiday travelers head home. Airlines for America, the airline industry’s trade group, expects 3.1 million passengers during what could be the busiest day ever recorded for American air travel.

The weather service issued storm warnings Friday for an area of the country stretching from Montana to Nebraska to Wisconsin, with heavy snow anticipated in parts of Utah, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming.

Wind gusting to 90 mph was possible in mountains and foothills, and could reach 65 mph in the Plains, creating poor visibility.

Northern Michigan University reopened its residence halls, two days earlier than normal for a Thanksgiving weekend, to give students more options as forecasters predicted a foot or more of snow.

The airline industry group estimated a record 31.6 million people will travel over a 12-day holiday period. Airlines said Friday that they were so far operating as usual as they monitored the weather.

In Chicago, the forecast was for all rain. One wave of rain will make for a gray morning today, but showers are expected to be steady tonight into the early hours Sunday.

There also may be another round of moderate rain Sunday evening.

As the snow clips northern Michigan, 6 to 12 inches is possible through Sunday afternoon.

Farther east, New York City may get a snow sandwich — rain from Sunday night through Monday night, with a touch of snow at the start and at the finish.

Delta said inclement weather could disrupt travel at airports in the upper Midwest today and the Northeast on Sunday and Monday. It offered to let customers reschedule or cancel flights. American Airlines issued similar waivers for Rapid City, S.D.

Sections of South Dakota were under a blizzard warning and could face howling wind and as much as 2 feet of snow.

Authorities reported a fatal crash after a driver lost control of his pickup on an ice-covered road. A 37-yearold passenger was killed when the truck slid into a ditch and rolled. The driver and one other passenger survived.