Deadly winter storm forces more than 12,000 flight cancellations and delays with more airport chaos expected

The next round of bitter cold temperatures and winter weather conditions is aimed at the South

More air travel chaos was expected on Tuesday, just after a deadly winter storm brought dangerous weather across much of the eastern U.S., forcing over 12,000 delays and cancellations at airports.

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, more than 2,100 delays and cancellations were tracked within, into, or out of the country, according to tracker FlightAware. Of those, the majority were still reported at airports based in major East Coast cities. But flights in the South were also impacted as frigid temperatures and wintry conditions gripped the region.

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport — where runways reopened after closing overnight — reported dozens of cancellations and delays, while flights at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport were also severely impacted.

Meanwhile, snow continued to fall near the metros and in the mountains between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., bringing an additional one to two inches. Cold and dry conditions were expected between Tuesday and Thursday before the next system approaches that area on Friday and into the weekend.

A man checks a flight information display showing many canceled flights at Virginia’s Washington Dulles International airport on Monday. After thousands of flight cancellations and delays were reported across states affected by a deadly winter storm in the eastern U.S., wintry weather has its eye on Texas and the South (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)

Many schools across the county remained closed on Tuesday after snow and ice made driving conditions nearly impossible. Hundreds of crashes were reported in Maryland, Virginia, and other states, with a handful of deaths being reported. While the majority of the victims were adults, Illinois officials said a juvenile was killed and another was being treated for life-threatening injuries following a snow tube crash in Macon County, according to WICS.

While weather across the eastern U.S. was markedly calmer on Tuesday, forecasters warned that disruptive wintry weather would sweep from Texas into the Lower Mississippi Valley and Mid-South, before possibly moving back toward the Mid-Atlantic states. Light snow is forecast in the Lone Star State’s western region before a more significant storm on Thursday.

“With cold air already in place, a wintry mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain is forecast for the Southern Plains, which may cause hazardous driving conditions, starting late Wednesday night and continuing into Thursday morning,” the National Weather Service warned.

Its warnings came after an unidentified individual was found dead at a bus stop in Houston. Officials reported the death was tied to the cold weather.

A winter storm watch was in effect for north Texas and a cold weather advisory was issued in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.

Heavy snow falls as a person walks along U.S. Route 42 in Florence, Kentucky, on Monday. More wintry weather conditions are forecast in Texas this week after storms resulted in hundreds of crashes (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

In response to the oncoming threat, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he had activated state emergency response resources.

“As Texas faces snow, ice, and freezing rain, we’re working around-the-clock to ensure Texans have necessary resources,” he wrote in a post on social media.

More than 5,000 customers were reported without power in the state, according to tracker PowerOutage.US. Outages continued to plague the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. Virginia still had more than 57,000 on Tuesday. Utility Dominion Energy said it had restored power to more than 70 percent of its customers and was continuing to work on Tuesday.

While the lion’s share of outages were reported in six states from Missouri to Virginia, outages were also shown in California, where a particularly dangerous situation resulting from Santa Ana winds and critical fire weather was unfolding.