Flight Delays, Cancellations at South Florida Airports as Winter Storm Sweeps the Nation – NBC 6 South Florida

While the weather outside South Florida airports may not be as frightful as in other parts of the country, there still is the chaos of flight delays and cancellations as a result.

Long lines of cars and crowds continued Friday at both Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Officials at MIA are expecting record breaking numbers when it comes to travelers this holiday season, with around 2.5 million people expected to pass through the airport.

More than 1,250 flights scheduled for Friday have been canceled in Midwestern or East Coast states amid a major winter, according to a flight-tracking site.

Some airports have already been battered by the storm, such as Chicago, and flights in other parts of the country have been canceled ahead of the anticipated cold temperatures and high winds.

Over 200 million people or 60% of the population are under some form of weather warning or advisory from a “historic winter storm,” forecasters said according to NBC News.

“Winter weather hazards will stretch from border to border across the central and eastern U.S. and from coast to coast from the east coast to the Pacific Northwest,” the National Weather Service said in a bulletin.

At Denver International Airport, de-icing was needed with a wind chill of minus 17 degrees.

“We have teams out in the airport right now handing out blankets and pillows,” spokesperson Stephanie Figueroa said.

Going into the holiday weekend, it added that the storm will have “increasingly widespread impacts to travel,” along with the “potential for power outages.”

A swath of the South and the Southeast, including Georgia and the Carolinas, will be under wind chill advisories starting Friday.