Bay Area storm worries Thanksgiving travelers at SFO
SAN FRANCISCO - Flight delays and cancelations started to rack up Friday morning at San Francisco International Airport, just ahead of the busy Thanksgiving travel week.
As of 7 a.m., there were more than 100 delays and dozens of canceled flights with round two of an atmospheric river as SFO officials said they expect to see more than 160,000 passengers on Friday alone, just as the holiday travel kicks off.
Bucky Dingler had to sleep overnight at the airport.
"They just kept delaying the flight," he said. "There wer no hotels available. I went to eight different ones and nobody had a room."
Mykayla Williamson, a-Stanford student, was at the airport on her way to surprise her family at a cousin's wedding this weekend.
"I was concerned about travel delays," she said. "I’ve seen storms hitting the Washington area around Seattle area. I’ve been concerned about this Thanksgiving holiday and making it home."
Oakland and San Jose airports reported only a handful of delays early Friday morning, but the situation could change as the rainstorm is expected to push south and be the strongest from between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday.
Timeline: Here's when round 2 of atmospheric river will hit Bay Area
Round 2 of that atmospheric river is expected to hit Friday, covering a wider region of the Bay Area. Here's a timeline of when the rain will hit the hardest.
The San Francisco Bay Area isn't the only region suffering from bad weather – and travel anxiety.
Across the country, winter storms were wreaking havoc with Thanksgiving Day plans to eat turkey with family.
The National Weather Service was predicting accumulating snow in northern New England on Wednesday, including up to 8 inches of snowfall in northern Maine. Snow was also expected to hit the northern Rocky Mountains on Thanksgiving Day, bringing up to 1 foot of snow to parts of Wyoming by Friday.
Not everyone planned to fly, though, for the holiday.
AAA predicts that 55.4 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home between Wednesday and Sunday, the third-highest forecast ever by the auto club. AAA says most of them — 49.1 million -- will drive.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.