Kansas City Chiefs’ depart after ice storm strands them for hours on runway
Millions to be impacted by winter storm
The first significant winter storm of the year is endangering a 2,100-mile swath of the country from the Northwest and Plains through the mid-Atlantic and East Coast, bringing a multitude of life-threatening hazards across major metropolitan areas, including heavy snow amid potentially blizzard-like conditions, and crippling ice accretions that could lead to extended power outages. Mike Oravec with the Weather Prediction Center joined LiveNOW from FOX's Josh Breslow to discuss.
The Kansas City Chiefs were stranded for several hours Saturday at Kansas City International Airport as an ice storm shut down operations.
The severe winter weather prevented their chartered jet from departing for their game against the Broncos on Sunday in Denver.
The team finally departed after spending about four hours stranded on the tarmac.
FILE - A view of a snowy Chiefs logo before an AFC wild card playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs on Jan 16, 2022 at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, MO. (Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty
The Chiefs tried to move up the flight as the weather, which had been predicted all week. But the plane they were expected to use was delayed in arriving, so the team had to stick with its mid-afternoon departure.
Their chartered jet was the first to depart once airport operations resumed.
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Winter storm forecast
The winter weather affecting the area Saturday is part of a much larger system heading through much of the U.S. this weekend and into Monday.
Heavy snow with winds that could lead to blizzard conditions hit the Central Plains starting Saturday.
The storm will then move into the Ohio Valley on Sunday, where travel disruptions are expected, and to the Mid-Atlantic on Sunday into Monday.
Starting Monday, hundreds of millions of people in the eastern two-thirds of the country will experience dangerous, bone-chilling air and wind chills, forecasters said.
Temperatures could be 12 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit colder than normal as the polar vortex stretches down from the high Arctic.
A hard freeze is even expected in Florida.
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The Source: Information in this article was taken from The Associated Press, which received weather reports and conditions from Kansas City International Airport. Weather conditions were taken from The Associated Press and FOX Weather. This story was reported from Detroit.