Blizzard conditions at Denver International Airport are making it tough for crews to keep runways clear, causing big delays and hundreds of canceled flights and creating treacherous driving conditions on Peña Boulevard.
Forecasters expect the deep low pressure system moving from southern Colorado into western Kansas to drop another 1 to 4 inches of snow at DIA. Winds gusting at 20 to 30 mph or higher are causing drifts across runways.
“It’s not the snowfall, it’s the wind,” said DIA spokesman Chuck Cannon, who estimated as much as a foot of snow has fallen at DIA since Tuesday evening.
At 2:30 p.m. today, blizzard conditions on Peña Boulevard had reduced visibility to just a few feet.
Traffic was bumper-to-bumper and a number of accidents have occurred due to the whiteout conditions.
At the airport, DIA was implementing a snow plan that uses the airport’s four north-south runways, DIA’s Cannon said. At times traffic was limited to one runway each for departures and arrivals as the other two were being cleaned.
There are typically six runways in use at DIA.
Inside the terminal, flight information boards showed one- to two-hour delays for many flights.
But Frontier Airlines said its schedule is running three to four hours behind because DIA has been unable to keep its runways and taxiways open for anything but limited operations, the airline said.
Frontier canceled 19 of 155 flights departures from Denver today.
United Airlines said it has canceled about 50 percent of approximately 400 flights into and out of DIA today, United spokesman Charlie Hobart said.
Hobart said United ticket holders should go to to check the status of their flights before heading to the airport.
Southwest Airlines canceled 35 out of 224 flights into and out of DIA on Thursday, Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said. “Things are expected to get better as the day goes on.”
At midday, blowing snow made for extremely low visibility at DIA. The white peaks on the terminals’ futuristic roof could barely be seen from the outer reaches of the east side economy lot.
DIA officials warned that while it was snowing lightly the snow was being driven by strong winds.
They said the primary impact was on Peña Boulevard, which was icy and snow-packed. The officials said motorists driving to the airport should use extreme care.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
