Flight cancellations throughout the U.S. have reached 4,229 as of 5:45 p.m. ET Monday, according to Flightaware.com, and they continue to pile up amid a polar vortex whose frosty winds have caused temperatures to plummet all over America.
Delays are nearing 12,000 for today, adding to the workload of airports that were already backed up due to flights grounded by Winter Storm Hercules over the weekend. Around 8,600 flights were scratched this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and it doesn't look like cancellations will let up tomorrow.
See also: Polar Vortex Puts Midwest on Ice
Over 1,100 flights have already been nixed for Tuesday, 291 from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport alone. O'Hare has had the most cancellations so far today as well, with 819, well over half the number of flights scheduled. Those numbers are easily the highest in the country, but the polar vortex doesn't scare Karen Pride, the director of media affairs for the Chicago Department of Aviation.
"This is nothing new," Pride told Mashable. "People are trained all year round in order to deal with this."
The temperatures are new in many areas, though, as many states are seeing record lows. The mayor of Indianapolis, Ind., declared it illegal to drive for the day due to the weather, meaning people may have had to cancel their travel plans even if their flight wasn't.
Chances are, though, if you had planned to fly out of Indiana's state capital, your flight probably wasn't going to get off the ground. Two thirds of Indianapolis' flights were scrapped, a total of 115. Cleveland Hopkins International Airport also had to cancel 50% of the day's load, 144 flights in all.
"It's going to take a while for everyone to get back to where they were going," Jacqueline Mayo, communications manager for Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, told Mashable. "They know that this is just going to back up the system even more, because it's already backed up. It's a backup on top of a backup."
That overload is predicted to ease up as the week rolls on and temperatures start to climb.
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Image: Flickr, James Cridland