Someone Wake The Groundhog... Spring Can't Come Soon Enough

Yet another winter storm socked in airports throughout the Midwest and East Coast this weekend.

USA Today reports hundreds of flights were cancelled at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports, as well as New York's Kennedy and La Guardia and Dulles International in Washington, DC.

Low-cost carrier JetBlue -- with memories still fresh of its response to a similar storm earlier this month -- took a proactive approach and cancelled 68 flights out of Kennedy Monday, as well as dozens more from O'Hare and Washington, DC. Other airlines took similar measures.

JetBlue spokeswoman Alison Eshelman said the cancellations were to make sure crews and equipment were in place for the airline to resume normal operations after the storm -- something the carrier failed to do in response to the February 14 storm. As Aero-News reported, fallout from that storm shut down a large part of JetBlue's operations for six days.

Along the east coast, weary airport officials had to deal once again with stranded passengers... but officials say it could have been a lot worse.

"The way I see it, we lucked out in getting snow as opposed to freezing rain," said National Weather Service Meterologist Andy Woodcock.

A separate system snarled operations at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Saturday, as vicious winds blew dust from the state's western plains through the metroplex, creating thick brown-out conditions. DFW and Dallas Love Field were subjected to ground stop orders lasting nearly to six hours.

Before the ground stop, strong winds blew an American Eagle Embraer 145 off a taxiway at Love. The airport later recorded a top gust near 60 mph.

By Monday, most airports had resumed normal operations. An exception was Philadelphia International Airport, where incoming flights were delayed by 45 minutes, according to The Journal News.

FMI: www.nws.gov