Weather Explainers

Ask A Met: What's Your Worst Weather-Related Travel Delay?

Each week, our meteorologists answer a question from readers.

For this week's edition of Ask A Met, I asked for our weather.com team to share a few of their worst weather-related vacation delays. Have you ever been stuck in the airport during a winter storm? Or waiting on a train that never arrives? If you've got a good story, share it in the comments below.

Meteorologist Jonathan Belles: My hometown is near Elmira, New York. It’s big snow country and lake-effect snow was a big concern there. I used to fly back and forth from there to Tampa, Florida, every year for Christmas. Back in those days, those planes were puddle jumpers that could hold maybe 10 people.

I was so young, I can’t remember exactly why, but one year our puddle jumper got stuck somewhere in the snow before it could bring us back home. So, as a kid, I got stuck in the Philadelphia airport all night long. It was something like an 8 or 12-hour delay right in the middle of the holidays. We didn’t fly out until the next morning.

Producer Caroline Aylward: Got to the airport on Christmas Eve, waited in line to check my bag, got to the desk and they said the flight was cancelled. So I went to Chick-fil-A, got some coffee and drove 10 hours to Florida. Honestly, it was kind of fun.

Meteorologist Rob Shackelford: Trying to leave southern India, I had to fly to northern India and then to London. The Northern India flight to London was delayed. By the time we got to the U.K., our flight from London to NYC was gone. They gave us a free voucher for an on-site hotel and a complimentary breakfast. Haha!

Illustrator Lisa Pringle: So, I went to New York this summer in June for a family trip. When it was over, my brother and I had a flight back to Atlanta from the LaGuardia Airport. While we were sitting in the terminal that morning, everything seemed normal. Suddenly, the monitor that has your flight information suddenly changed to "Cancelled." No announcement was made or anything. Well, it turns out, the day before I was scheduled to fly back into Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, a hailstorm hit Atlanta with quarter-inch hailstones.

Delta had to pull 100 planes out of service to inspect them for damage from the hail storm. We had to book a flight for the day after that. Even then, the next day at 5:00 p.m., they kept on pushing it back and we didn’t leave until 9 p.m. It was a nightmare experience staying an entire 2 days before we could get home.