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3,000 flights canceled as eastern US braces for high winds, tornadoes

by Tara Suter - 03/16/26 2:48 PM ET

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Thousands of flights were cancelled Monday as the eastern U.S. braces for high winds and possible tornadoes and the Midwest deals with blizzard conditions.

According to the flight-tracking website FlightAware, 3,573 flights had been cancelled that were destined within, into, or out of the U.S. as of 2:00 p.m. EDT.

Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport topped cancellations for both arrivals and departures, per FlightAware, with 277 arriving flights and 219 departing flights cancelled.

Delays for flights within, into, or out of the U.S. were also widespread, reaching 6,577 as of 2 p.m., according to the flight tracker.

“Multiple rounds of severe storms through this evening will yield potential for scattered to widespread damaging winds and a few strong tornadoes from the Carolinas into the Mid-Atlantic States,” the National Weather Service (NWS) said in a post on the social platform X Monday afternoon.

“As of 12:30p ET, more than 34 million people are under tornado watches from Florida to the Northeast,” the NWS added.

The NWS’s Weather Prediction Center said in a post on X Monday afternoon that “[b]lizzard conditions continue today across portions of the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes.” It said 25-35 inches of snow have fallen across southeastern Minnesota, central Wisconsin, and northern Michigan as of 10 a.m. CDT.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Monday morning on X that “[s]evere weather” in the eastern U.S. was resulting in delayed and cancelled flights.

“Be sure to check your flight status with your airline before leaving home,” the FAA added.

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