Winter storm in Denver brings hundreds of flight cancellations

Jan 18, 2023, 4:11 PM

Travelers walk past the Southwest Airlines check-in counter at Denver International Airport on December 28, 2022 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

(Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

BY ANDI BABINEAU AND KARA DEVLIN

KSLTV.com

(CNN) — Hundreds of flights have been canceled Wednesday at Denver International Airport (DIA) as a winter storm sweeps across the Rocky Mountain region, according to data from FlightAware.

According to the flight tracking site, just over 300 flights bound for or departing from DIA had been canceled as of 5:30 p.m. ET, with almost 600 flights delayed.

Roughly 185 of the cancellations were Southwest Airlines flights, FlightAware indicates.

On Tuesday, more than 180 flights to or from the Denver airport were canceled.

In a statement to CNN, a DIA spokesperson said despite the cancellations, airport operations are running smoothly.

“Many airlines decide to preemptively cancel flights within a 24 hour period to maintain regular operations,” the spokesperson said.

Still, the airport advises passengers to check with specific airlines for the most up-to-date information on their flights.

Copious snowfall in Denver and beyond

As of 11 a.m. MST, 8.6 inches of snow had been recorded at DIA, according to the National Weather Service office in Boulder. This is the largest January snowfall total for Denver since 1992, when 14.8 inches of snow was recorded.

Denver remains under a winter storm warning until 5 p.m. MST, where snow is forecast to continue to fall through late this afternoon.

Denver also recorded 0.43″ of precipitation on Tuesday; the NWS says the average precipitation for all of January in Denver is 0.38 inches.

The weather is creating road issues, too.

Interstate 70 has been closed from near DIA to the Kansas state line in both directions, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

The Colorado State Patrol tweeted from its CSP Limon account that there was a pileup on I-70 involving nine commercial vehicles near Strasburg, about 30 miles east of DIA.

As for US air travel on Thursday, fewer than 50 flights had been preemptively canceled across the country as of 5:30 p.m. ET Wednesday.

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