Travel Mess. Hey, It's Late December!

Map, via Flightview.com (as of 6.26 p.m. EST), shows lots of yellow lights at major airports. That's not good! Red dots are worse. Look for more red dots as this winter storm spreads northeast.

The TV weatherpeople all have their hair on fire, but hey, it's late December! It's winter and it snows. News reports breathlessly talk about the "killer storm," and keep track of the "death toll" (12) -- but you know what? People die during bad weather all the time. (They even die during good weather). Ask any hospital emergency room doctor or EMS technician. So the "death toll" in any routine storm is usually meaningless, except as a way to dramatize bad weather and give it some kind of a narrative.

It's just crappy weather. 

But one factor that's actually new: Airlines have shrunk domestic capacity to the point where there is absolutely no slack in the system. A cancelled flight often means a day's delay for a connection, in that case.

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