Winter Weather Threatens Holiday Travel
ACOSTA: This year might be the year for people to start rethinking those Thanksgiving traditions. Stay at home, maybe consider not going to grandma's house, although that won't be the case in my household. Unless, of course, you like to battle airport delays, cancellations, icy roads, car wrecks. That is what many of you have been dealing with already. And guess what? More of this is on the way, especially in the Northeast. We've seen snow across the Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic, and while the south has also seen some snow, rain and ice. And for everyone, even if you're being careful, traveling has been treacherous. We've already seen that today.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got on the highway and the next thing I know I'm spinning.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a point where there's just nothing you can do. It's just glare ice and you're just a passenger in your own car.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you have to say to Mother Nature right now?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I can't -- I don't want to say that on T.V.</s>ACOSTA: Now, that's just part of the storm story. We have our Alina Machado watching dangerous roads and heavy rains in Atlanta. Our Shannon Travis braving the snow outside of Pittsburgh and our Chad Myers is in the CNN Severe Weather Center. Chad, let's start with you. What are the dangerous areas right now that people should be aware of?</s>CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's Pennsylvania and upstate New York right now. But there's an awful lot of rain still coming down in the Shenandoah Valley and parts of just west of D.C. and it's 33. When the sun sets, it's not going to be 33. It's going to be 32. It's going to be 31. And that's going to freeze. So, yes, we're still seeing is the snow up here across Pennsylvania. I mean, Altoona, Dubois, all these areas here, that's all snow and all coming down. What you're seeing with Shannon is some of the melting on the roadways but that melting will stop when the sun sets. That's Pittsburgh. And everything else all down here, that's all rain. And you think, oh, it's just rain. That's no big deal. Well, this is a map of Atlanta in the rain. Here's the center of Atlanta right there. That's what we call the perimeter. And here's one major artery, I-85, shut down right there because of two tractor-trailers that collided just northeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Probably shut down in the southbound direction until 3:00 p.m. Look at your clock. That's a ways away. Here comes the rain. Charleston back into -- even rain can make a big problem. And here's the snow back into parts of Ohio, back into Pittsburgh, still snowing there. And that snow will continue for a lot of the day. I don't think we're going to get a lot of changeover here in upstate New York. This is where the bulk of the snow will be. For a while, the rain will come into our forecast for New York City, even into Philadelphia. And I think that stays rain. I-95 stays rain but everything west of there, west of probably 84, 81, especially right through you, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse. That's all snow all the time.</s>ACOSTA: That looks like a big mess. All right, Chad, thank you very much. As Chad said, Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas are already experiencing some flurries. And when all of this, you know, stops melting later tonight, it could ice up and get even worse. Our Shannon Travis has been out braving the roads. He's in Irwin, Pennsylvania, about 22 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Shannon, how is it looking out there? You don't look too happy right now.</s>SHANNON TRAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, not so happy. And, Jim, if you're one of those folks who thinks Thanksgiving isn't quite the Thanksgiving without a little snow, consider this Mother Nature's gift. As you mentioned, we're in Irwin, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles outside of Pittsburgh. We're on Interstate 76. It goes right into Pittsburgh. As we were driving in, there was nothing essentially, Jim, but just like annoying rain. But when we got here, there was this. This snow coming down. It isn't coming down so heavy right now but it's been coming down fairly steady. I'm going to use a very unofficial ruler, my finger, because I left my trusty ruler at home. But it's getting pretty deep as you can see it on here. I a few minutes ago, only half my finger stuck down in there, Jim. And now, it's almost the whole thing. We estimate, very unofficially, about three inches or so. We are in Irwin, as I mentioned. This is in West Moreland County. Pittsburgh is nearby. That's in Allegheny County. Obviously, they are getting hit. They're under a winter storm warning right now, potentially forecast five to nine inches possibly there. I spoke to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. They tell me that in the county, they're going to deploy about 80 trucks, 135 crews. They'll be working in 12 hour shifts back to back in</s>ACOSTA: OK. And our Chad Myers might take exception to your scientific methods out there, Shannon Travis, in terms of your measuring the snowfall. But we appreciate it very much. Thanks for that live look in the very important Pittsburgh area. A lot of people travelling through that area this time of year. One of the areas also feeling the weather right now and what's happening is the Atlanta area. As Chad mentioned, Alina Machado is there standing outside in the cold and rain -- I'm sorry to hear that, Alina - near Interstate 75 and 85. It's above freezing rights now. Could that change? What does that mean for the folks in that area? Because there's a lot of people, as we know, moving through those highways over the next 24 hours.</s>ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, a bit of good news. It appears that the temperature will stay above freezing. So all this water that we've gotten so far today will not be freezing anytime soon. Take a look at the scene behind me. This is a major thoroughfare here. You can see traffic is starting to build. And this is what we're going to be seeing throughout the south. People seem to be slowing down, taking it easy. And that's exactly what you need to be doing in these weather conditions. Here in Atlanta, we're getting rain. If you head a little bit north, you're going to be getting a little bit of a mix of sleet and rain and possibly some ice and snow. So it all depends on where you're going to be. But wherever you are, you can expect to have plenty of company. The AAA says there's going to be more than 43 million people expected to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday. About 90 percent of those people will be getting in their cars and driving somewhere. So, Jim, the bottom line is, take it easy on the roads. Make sure you know what the forecast is like where you're going. And if you're not - if you're heading out today and maybe see that you're going to be running into some trouble with this storm, you might want to consider leaving tomorrow depending on where you are throughout the country.</s>ACOSTA: All right, very good advice. Thank you very much to all of our folks watching the weather, Chad Myers, Shannon Travis and Alina Machado. All of you, please stay safe and have a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you very much. Still ahead, if you're worried about getting stranded because of the storm this week, don't panic. Up next, we will get some great advice on how to avoid the worst case scenario.