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Winter rests, we can travel

A Midwest storm moves on, allowing a smooth Christmas Eve for fliers and drivers.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Many Christmas Eve travelers around the country got what they wished for - few airport delays and highways that were mostly clear, despite a deadly weekend snowstorm in the Plains and the Midwest.

The storm blacked out thousands of homes and businesses and snarled air travel over the weekend. It was blamed for at least 22 deaths.

The storm was gone Monday and conditions quickly improved.

Even the usually congested airports in the New York area - Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark-Liberty - all reported departure delays of less than 15 minutes by Monday afternoon, with outbound flights taking off on time.

"The weather is pretty clear, and there are no significant issues," said Marc LaVorgna, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the three airports.

"The roads aren't quite as ice-covered, but we're still telling people not to drive unless they have to," said Sgt. Tim Elve of the Dane County, Wis., sheriff's office. "The interstate is still slick and the rural roads are really bad."

AAA estimated 65.2-million Americans would travel 50 miles or more from home during the Christmas and New Year's period, a slight increase over last year's 64.7-million, despite high gasoline prices and air fares.

Sunny skies on Monday helped road crews deal with the remnants of the storm.

Sgt. Michael Melgaard of the Wisconsin State Patrol in Eau Claire said driving conditions improved substantially for holiday travelers starting in the late morning.

"The roads were clear for the most part and traffic was moving at normal speeds," he said Monday afternoon. "It seemed like there was a lot of steady holiday traffic, but it's starting to wane now as people are getting to their destinations."

The weekend-long blast of ice and windblown snow led to multicar pileups that closed sections of several major highways on the Plains.

The storm rolled through Colorado and Wyoming on Friday, then spread snow and ice on Saturday from the Texas Panhandle to Wisconsin. On Sunday, snow fell across much of Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota and parts of Michigan and Indiana.

Up to 15 inches of snow fell over the weekend on parts of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, which typically gets heavy snow, and freezing drizzle glazed some highways Monday morning in counties along Lake Michigan.

The storm system had blown out to sea Monday morning, but in its wake wind blowing at 25 mph picked up moisture from Lake Erie to create lake-effect snow in Buffalo, N.Y. Five to 10 inches of snow was possible there and in other parts of western New York by this morning, the weather service said.

More than 11,000 homes and businesses were without power at some point Saturday in Wisconsin because of the freezing rain, ice, gusty wind and heavy snow, utilities said. Michigan utilities reported some 15,700 customers were still without power Monday morning, and in Illinois about 3,900 ComEd customers remained without power Monday, down from a Sunday morning peak of more than 225,000.

[Last modified December 24, 2007, 22:45:02]