Heavy snow and high winds associated with Winter Storm Niko are complicating travel across the Northeast U.S. Thursday.
Weather.com reported winter storm warnings stretched along the I-95 corridor from Maryland to Maine with snow and high winds making for a treacherous morning commute in places like Philadelphia and New York City, where drivers are being encouraged to stay off the roads.
New York is expecting up to a foot of snow, while parts of New England could receive as much as 18 inches. Blizzard conditions could add to issues on Long Island and Southeast Massachusetts.
According to flight-tracking website FlightAware.com, more than 2,900 flights within, into or out of the U.S. scheduled for Thursday have been canceled as of 9:30 a.m. ET, with a majority of those cancellations coming at major airports across the Northeast and New England.
More than 60 percent of Thursday's flights into and out of Boston's Logan International Airport have been canceled.
Meanwhile, New York's Big Three airports-John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport-are also being heavily impacted by Niko. According to FlightAware.com, more than 650 flights have been grounded at LaGuardia, where snow is falling at a rate as fast as one inch per hour, per Weather.com.
Nearby, JFK and Newark airports are catching up, though, reporting several hundred cancellations for Thursday as well.
Other airports experiencing significant cancellations Thursday include Philadelphia International Airport, Washington's Reagan National Airport and Bradley International Airport. In some cases, Friday flights are already being canceled, including in places like Boston.
"It appears that most airlines expect to recover overnight and into tomorrow morning so that they can operate as much of a normal schedule as possible on Friday," FlightAware CEO Daniel Baker said in a statement via USA Today, warning that air travelers could potentially encounter issues into the weekend given that Friday is typically a busy travel day.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that Pennsylvania's Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport and New York's Greater Binghamton Airports closed altogether Thursday.
Fortunately, for impacted air travelers, major airlines (including Delta Air Lines) announced ahead of time that they were waiving change fees for customers in or out of cities in the storm's path.
Of course, air travelers are always encouraged to check their flight status before they travel.
If there is a silver lining for stranded travelers, though, it's that Niko is forecast to be out of the picture by Friday.
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