EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Ice storms in most of Texas caused flight cancelations and delays along with accidents and road closures.
“They just told me that it had been delayed by a couple of hours,” said Jan Thune from Las Cruces who was trying to get to Dallas.
“We had a connection flight in Dallas and we just heard right now that it’s canceled,” said Paulina Villanueva from El Paso.
The National Weather Service El Paso tells KTSM 9 News that in the coming days, more Texas cities are expected to be impacted by ice storms.
“Now what’s going to happen tonight that cold air shifts a little further south into places like Austin and San Antonio, those are also places where flights head to coming out of El Paso,” said Jason Laney, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service El Paso.
While El Paso was sunny on Tuesday, Laney says Van Horn was already 20 degrees colder than El Paso Tuesday afternoon.
“You can draw a line straight from Van Horn to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and go 70 miles on either side of that line and that is where the ice is falling as of today,” said Laney.
However, El Paso is expected to see colder temperatures Tuesday night into Wednesday but not as cold as other parts of the state.
“I don’t think El Paso is going to get in on this ice storm but anybody that heads east of here up into the highlands of parts of Hudspeth County could get dicey tonight (Tuesday) so we went ahead and issued a winter weather advisory for that area as well,” said Laney.
Van Horn is already seeing an impact after as many as 12 vehicles were involved in a pile-up accident on I-10 East near mile marker 185 in Jeff Davis County.
The pile-up happened around 7 a.m. on Tuesday and I-10 eastbound lanes were closed for the majority of the day.
Texas Department of Public Safety says around 6 p.m. the eastbound right lane was reopened but crews remained on the scene.
The Texas Department of Transportation El Paso is asking people to stay home if the weather is not favorable.
“If they’re not able to stay home, then to first check weather conditions as we know weather conditions are very different depending on what part of town, what part of the state they are driving to,” said Lauren Macias Cervantes, a spokesperson for TxDot El Paso.
