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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Rally Caparas
Aired December 06, 2003 - 08:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM MORET, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour with some advice for people in the Northeast -- stay home. A major winter storm is rolling up the East Coast from the mid-Atlantic to New England. New York City says it's ready. Some 1,700 snow plows have been mobilized across the city's 6,000 miles of streets and roads armed with 200,000 tons of salt. Even walking could be dangerous. In Connecticut, the ice and snow forced part of Interstate 95 to close.
In the words of one expert with the National Weather Service, "This is a big sucker." That's some quote.
We want to go back to Boston, though -- Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we do.
We're going to go back there live now for the view there of this winter storm, a live picture, as we were just seeing, from our Boston affiliate WHDH.
And CNN's Adoara Udoji is joining us now from there with the very latest on what will probably be a long, cold weekend across that part of the country -- right.
ADOARA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Heidi.
Let's take a look at these guys out here. This is what Boston is going to be about this weekend, the Boston area. There's going to be lots of snow. As you can see, it's coming down at a pretty brisk clip at this point. It started last night and we have about six inches on the ground at the moment. But by the end of tomorrow, they are expecting up to two feet in some places.
Now, of course, that's not good news for the retailers here on Newbury Street. Newbury Street is one of the busiest, if not the bustiest shopping street in Boston. So they're not going to be too happy about the weather. Many people are planning to stay home, of course, especially since the snow is expected to run straight through today and into tomorrow.
And that is of great concern to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. They're most worried about not only the constituency of the rainfall for the next 24 hours or so, but they're also expecting high winds of up to 45 miles per hour. And that could trigger high tides of up to three effect. That's in Boston Harbor, waves splashing into that harbor, and up to 25 foot surges offshore. All of that could be leading to coastal flooding, so they are certainly going to be watching very closely, monitoring the situation and seeing if it gets to the point where they need to call for a state of emergency.
We're not there yet, but we'll wait and see -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Wow. It's coming down fast though, that's for sure.
All right, Adoara, thank you so much.
MORET: And Rob Marciano is in the CNN Weather Center keeping track on all this activity, and it is changing by the minute and it is getting worse by the minute, I assume -- Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It will. And she made a good point. You know, there's going to be -- that coastal flood issue is something that we haven't really talked about.
COLLINS: Yes.
MARCIANO: And you get those winds coming off the ocean at 30, 35, 40 miles an hour, it just piles up that water. And then we're also piling up the snow. And we've seen quite a bit of snow already. The back half of it already starting to move through Washington, D.C. You can kind of see a bit of a swirl right there. That's a secondary low pressure that's going to be developing throughout the day. It'll ride up the Eastern Seaboard and obviously we already have moisture in place and it will just get colder as it pulls down some of that cold air from Canada.
So, up and down I-95 we'll be looking at snow, up 87 and through upstate New York, along I-90 over towards Syracuse. And this is not lake effect. This is just one sucker of a storm, as that National Weather Service observer or forecaster mentioned.
All right, the snow should be tapering down in Washington, D.C., four to eight inches total expected. If you go north and west of all these major cities, up to 20 inches is a good bet. Six to 10 in Philly. New York City, where a blizzard warning is posted for this afternoon til 10:00 p.m. tonight, and then I suspect in Boston also a blizzard warning could be posted tomorrow.
MORET: The storm, as you might imagine, is already making a mess of weekend air travel.
CNN air traffic expert Rally Caparas joins us on the phone with an update -- good morning.
RALLY CAPARAS, AIR TRAFFIC SPECIALIST: Good morning, Jim.
Well, it made a mess yesterday, that's for sure. Yesterday and today, between the two days, we've seen hundreds of canceled flights and fortunately I'm here in Atlanta looking up at the snow into the Northeast.
It's going to be another messy one for sure. I suggest the first thing that you do if you're flying today, folks, is go online and check with your airlines to find out what the status of your flight is. Don't bother calling them. The lines are going to be busy all day. There will be many more canceled flights, so do that before you step out and head to the airports.
This morning up in Boston's Logan Airport, you saw the snow falling just a few moments ago. It'll stay that way through the rest of the weekend. You can expect 45 to 60 minute arrival delays as a result. The strong wind and blowing snow will be the main problems. They'll close the runways down for 45 minutes to 60 minutes off and on throughout the day for runway snow removal, and that'll be the problem there. Fortunately we're not going to see the same volume that we would normally see during a work week.
Newark, LaGuardia and JFK, they had four and five hour delays yesterday. Today it goes to one to two hour delays. Strong gusting winds alone would force, you know, 45 to 60 minute delays. But with the snow, we'll see those delays increased to about two hours throughout the day. Runway snow removal a problem there, also.
Then down in Philadelphia, they'll see 60 minute arrival delays, winds, snow removal, departure flight dicing. And, as a matter of fact, departure flight deicing will take place at all three, or all three major metropolitan areas -- Boston, New York and Philly. And you can expect that to add about 30 minutes onto your departure time if you're headed out of those airports.
The D.C. metros this morning, we'll see 45 minute arrival delays, some 30 minute or so departure flight dicing, low clouds, light snow. But as Rob told you just a few moments ago, there will be clearing or at least a lessening of the snow and the influences from that snow this afternoon and evening. We could see on time schedules by the time we hit the evening rush between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on the Eastern time zone.
There are some things going on out West. Nothing major for the rest of the country.
I'll be back in the next hour.
From your eye on the sky, I'm Rally Caparas.
MORET: Thank you, Rally.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 6, 2003 - 08:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM MORET, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour with some advice for people in the Northeast -- stay home. A major winter storm is rolling up the East Coast from the mid-Atlantic to New England. New York City says it's ready. Some 1,700 snow plows have been mobilized across the city's 6,000 miles of streets and roads armed with 200,000 tons of salt. Even walking could be dangerous. In Connecticut, the ice and snow forced part of Interstate 95 to close.
In the words of one expert with the National Weather Service, "This is a big sucker." That's some quote.
We want to go back to Boston, though -- Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we do.
We're going to go back there live now for the view there of this winter storm, a live picture, as we were just seeing, from our Boston affiliate WHDH.
And CNN's Adoara Udoji is joining us now from there with the very latest on what will probably be a long, cold weekend across that part of the country -- right.
ADOARA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Heidi.
Let's take a look at these guys out here. This is what Boston is going to be about this weekend, the Boston area. There's going to be lots of snow. As you can see, it's coming down at a pretty brisk clip at this point. It started last night and we have about six inches on the ground at the moment. But by the end of tomorrow, they are expecting up to two feet in some places.
Now, of course, that's not good news for the retailers here on Newbury Street. Newbury Street is one of the busiest, if not the bustiest shopping street in Boston. So they're not going to be too happy about the weather. Many people are planning to stay home, of course, especially since the snow is expected to run straight through today and into tomorrow.
And that is of great concern to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. They're most worried about not only the constituency of the rainfall for the next 24 hours or so, but they're also expecting high winds of up to 45 miles per hour. And that could trigger high tides of up to three effect. That's in Boston Harbor, waves splashing into that harbor, and up to 25 foot surges offshore. All of that could be leading to coastal flooding, so they are certainly going to be watching very closely, monitoring the situation and seeing if it gets to the point where they need to call for a state of emergency.
We're not there yet, but we'll wait and see -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Wow. It's coming down fast though, that's for sure.
All right, Adoara, thank you so much.
MORET: And Rob Marciano is in the CNN Weather Center keeping track on all this activity, and it is changing by the minute and it is getting worse by the minute, I assume -- Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It will. And she made a good point. You know, there's going to be -- that coastal flood issue is something that we haven't really talked about.
COLLINS: Yes.
MARCIANO: And you get those winds coming off the ocean at 30, 35, 40 miles an hour, it just piles up that water. And then we're also piling up the snow. And we've seen quite a bit of snow already. The back half of it already starting to move through Washington, D.C. You can kind of see a bit of a swirl right there. That's a secondary low pressure that's going to be developing throughout the day. It'll ride up the Eastern Seaboard and obviously we already have moisture in place and it will just get colder as it pulls down some of that cold air from Canada.
So, up and down I-95 we'll be looking at snow, up 87 and through upstate New York, along I-90 over towards Syracuse. And this is not lake effect. This is just one sucker of a storm, as that National Weather Service observer or forecaster mentioned.
All right, the snow should be tapering down in Washington, D.C., four to eight inches total expected. If you go north and west of all these major cities, up to 20 inches is a good bet. Six to 10 in Philly. New York City, where a blizzard warning is posted for this afternoon til 10:00 p.m. tonight, and then I suspect in Boston also a blizzard warning could be posted tomorrow.
MORET: The storm, as you might imagine, is already making a mess of weekend air travel.
CNN air traffic expert Rally Caparas joins us on the phone with an update -- good morning.
RALLY CAPARAS, AIR TRAFFIC SPECIALIST: Good morning, Jim.
Well, it made a mess yesterday, that's for sure. Yesterday and today, between the two days, we've seen hundreds of canceled flights and fortunately I'm here in Atlanta looking up at the snow into the Northeast.
It's going to be another messy one for sure. I suggest the first thing that you do if you're flying today, folks, is go online and check with your airlines to find out what the status of your flight is. Don't bother calling them. The lines are going to be busy all day. There will be many more canceled flights, so do that before you step out and head to the airports.
This morning up in Boston's Logan Airport, you saw the snow falling just a few moments ago. It'll stay that way through the rest of the weekend. You can expect 45 to 60 minute arrival delays as a result. The strong wind and blowing snow will be the main problems. They'll close the runways down for 45 minutes to 60 minutes off and on throughout the day for runway snow removal, and that'll be the problem there. Fortunately we're not going to see the same volume that we would normally see during a work week.
Newark, LaGuardia and JFK, they had four and five hour delays yesterday. Today it goes to one to two hour delays. Strong gusting winds alone would force, you know, 45 to 60 minute delays. But with the snow, we'll see those delays increased to about two hours throughout the day. Runway snow removal a problem there, also.
Then down in Philadelphia, they'll see 60 minute arrival delays, winds, snow removal, departure flight dicing. And, as a matter of fact, departure flight deicing will take place at all three, or all three major metropolitan areas -- Boston, New York and Philly. And you can expect that to add about 30 minutes onto your departure time if you're headed out of those airports.
The D.C. metros this morning, we'll see 45 minute arrival delays, some 30 minute or so departure flight dicing, low clouds, light snow. But as Rob told you just a few moments ago, there will be clearing or at least a lessening of the snow and the influences from that snow this afternoon and evening. We could see on time schedules by the time we hit the evening rush between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on the Eastern time zone.
There are some things going on out West. Nothing major for the rest of the country.
I'll be back in the next hour.
From your eye on the sky, I'm Rally Caparas.
MORET: Thank you, Rally.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
