Winter Storm Update: Delta Air Lines Cancels 170 Flights In Atlanta

North Georgia and metro Atlanta are preparing for another winter storm and heavy snowfall Tuesday morning as an arctic cold front moves through overnight. Delta Air Lines announced Monday it was canceling 170 flights to and from Atlanta.

Delta said it will de-ice planes during the snowfall, which is expected to be at least half an inch of accumulation in Atlanta, with 60 de-icing trucks at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Delta will also cancel flights “to mitigate delays and keep the operation moving.” Southwest Airlines will also cancel some of its flights due to the storm.

The two largest carriers at the Atlanta airport are also waiving certain fees for customers who have flights booked Tuesday or Wednesday. The airlines announced that passengers must check their flight status before heading to the airport.

Multiple schools and businesses will be closed Tuesday as up to 4 inches of snow is predicted in far North Georgia, and up to an inch in Atlanta. However, there are some uncertainties on how widespread the snowfall will be.

“Some uncertainty continues regarding amounts of snow accumulations and how far south and east the threat may extend,” the National Weather Service said in a Monday update on the approaching storm.

Gov. Brian Kemp said state offices in more than 30 counties in the northern part of the state would be closed Tuesday.

“Temperatures are going to plummet,” the governor said at a Monday news conference.

“It’s very similar to what we saw in 2014 where the roadways will not have time to dry off before the moisture or precipitation on them refreezes,” Kemp said. “And that’s when you have black ice, and that’s what causes wrecks, which causes gridlock and public safety issues, injuries.”

The NWS said the latest winter storm is coming from the same storm system that triggered blizzard conditions in the Midwest, prompting officials to cancel about 1,000 flights at Chicago’s airports and close hundreds of schools.

Parts of North and middle Georgia — including Cherokee, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Gwinnett and Fulton counties — will also be under a winter weather advisory from 3 a.m. until 7 p.m. EST Tuesday, according to the NWS.

“Total snow accumulations of up to one-and-a-half inches are expected, mainly along and north of line from Carrollton to Marietta to Canton,” an advisory read. “Lesser amounts of snow are likely right along the I-85 corridor.”

Warnings were also issued for those traveling by road, with the possibility of ice-glazed roads and highways.

“It is often easy to pass judgment on how we in Georgia deal with snow and ice, but for those from the north what you do know is that an ice event is very different than a snow event,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Monday. “And because we don’t want a repeat of 2014, we have already begun to pretreat our streets and are paying, particularly, attention to our sidewalks because we do know that we will have many visitors in our tourist areas.”