World Tourism Blog

As Ronak Ray hunted for his flight gate, he prepared for the prospect of a security guard peering through his clothes with a full body scanner. But Ray doesn’t mind: what he gives up in privacy he gets back in security.

“I think it’s necessary,” said Ray, a 23-year-old graduate student who was at San Francisco International Airport to fly to India. “Our lives are far more important than how we’re being searched.”

Despite controversy surrounding the scans, Ray’s position was typical of several travelers interviewed at various airports Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Airports in five other U.S. cities are also using full body scanners at specific checkpoints instead of metal detectors. In addition, the scanners are used at 13 other airports for random checks and so-called secondary screenings of passengers who set off detectors.

But many more air travelers may have to get used to the idea soon. The Transportation Security Administration has ordered 150 more full body scanners to be installed in airports throughout the country in early 2010, agency spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said.

Dutch security officials have said they believe such scanners could have detected the explosive materials Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab of Nigeria is accused of trying to ignite aboard a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight Christmas Day.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport has 15 full body scanners, but none were used to scan Abdulmutallab when he boarded. In Europe and the U.S., privacy concerns over the scanners’ ability to see through clothing have kept them from widespread use.

The technology was first used about two years ago to make it easier for airport security to do body searches without making physical contact with passengers.

The idea of an electronic strip search did not bother Judy Yeager, 62, of Sarasota, Fla., as she prepared to depart Las Vegas. She stood in the full-body scanner Wednesday afternoon and held her arms up as a security official guided her through the gray closet-sized booth.

“If it’s going to protect a whole airplane of people, who gives a flying you-know-what if they see my boob whatever,” Yeager said. “That’s the way I feel, honest to God.”

George Hyde, of Birmingham, Ala., who was flying out of Salt Lake City with his wife, Patsy, on Wednesday after visiting their children and grandchildren in Park City, Utah.

“I’d rather be safe than be embarrassed,” Hyde said. Neither he nor his wife had been through a body scanner before.

“We’re very modest people but we’d be willing to go through that for security.”

Trevino said the TSA has worked with privacy advocates and the scanners’ manufacturers to develop software that blurs the faces and genital areas of passengers being scanned. In all cases, passengers are not required to be scanned by the machine but can opt for a full body pat-down instead. Hard money training.

Paul MacLeod is a perpetually caffeinated Elvis fanatic who’s taking care of business 24-7-365 at the antebellum home he calls “Graceland Too.”

Pound on the door at any hour — seriously, it’s OK to arrive at 4 in the morning — and the 67-year-old former auto worker will escort you through his discombobulating, floor-to-ceiling collection of photos, records, figurines, cardboard cutouts, candy wrappers, clocks and other random kitsch featuring the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

“I’d give my life right now if I could bring this guy back,” MacLeod says in his auctioneer’s staccato, his gray hair slicked back in a ’50s style.

MacLeod says he rarely leaves Graceland Too, sleeps only sporadically and is fueled by 24 cans of Coca-Cola a day — a claim at least partially verified by the aluminum pull-top tabs he collects in sandwich bags and the stacks of flattened red cardboard boxes on the back porch.

Graceland Too is in Holly Springs, a northern Mississippi town of 8,000. It’s a convenient stop for fans on an Elvis pilgrimage, sitting about halfway between Elvis Presley’s birthplace in Tupelo, Miss., and the King’s final home and resting place, the unaffiliated Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tenn.

Until Graceland Too became a magnet for offbeat tourism, Holly Springs was best known for its traditional — and tastefully kept — white-columned antebellum homes.

“He’s our number one attraction,” says Suzann Williams, assistant director of the local tourism bureau.

She says that people call daily wanting information about Graceland Too, and that the Japanese and the British are the largest groups of overseas visitors. MacLeod doesn’t have a telephone, but the tourism folks take him notes to let him know visitors are coming.

MacLeod is so obsessed that 36 years ago, he named his only son after the man he considers the world’s greatest entertainer and humanitarian.

“My son was born Elvis Aron Presley, with one A for Aron,” he says, noting the spelling Presley used for years. “I didn’t put the other A to his name until Vernon Presley put it on his son’s grave.”

Floors creak beneath visitors’ feet as they walk through the 157-year-old home warmed by space heaters that sit perilously close to raggedy shag carpet and stacks of papers and magazines.

For $5, visitors get to experience sensory overload, harshly lit by unshaded bulbs.

Doorways are decorated with several Elvis-patterned curtains in ’70s-era hues of turquoise and lime. There are photocopies of a newspaper with MacLeod’s all-time favorite headline: “Elvis Presley Excites Girls, Scares Critics.”

A poster-sized display in the entryway declares — sans punctuation — “The Universes Galaxys Planets Worlds Ultimate Elvis Fans.”

“My ex-wife told me, ‘Make up your mind. Either me or the Elvis collection.’ So that put an end to that,” MacLeod says with a chuckle.

MacLeod says he has owned his home since the mid-1970s, and that he’s had 368,000 visitors since he started opening it to strangers since the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Heaven help the fact-checker who’d have to verify the statistics he tosses out during his tours, which typically last an hour and a half.

Fans say the random, nonstop flow of information is part of the campy appeal.

Garreth Blackwell, a 27-year-old journalism teacher at the nearby University of Mississippi, said he has been to Graceland Too a half-dozen times and recently took his wife and three friends for a nighttime tour.

“It’s kind of hard to talk about this guy, because you come enough you hear the same things over and over again,” Blackwell says. “It kind of puts that in your mind, ‘Well, maybe this is all true.’ You don’t ever know. But it doesn’t matter because it’s a good time.”

MacLeod says that he became an Elvis fan when he was 13, and that he attended 120 Elvis concerts.

In Graceland Too, MacLeod claims to have 35,000 records and 25,000 CDs. He says he has 185,000 square inches of carpet that once was in Graceland. He constantly monitors radio and TV broadcasts and records any mention of his idol, claiming to have 31,000 videotapes and 43,000 audio recordings.

Then there’s the scrapbook filled with teensy slivers of paper — 1 million mentions, he says, of the name Elvis Presley.

“There’s my burial suit up here to come back and haunt my ex-wife,” MacLeod says, pointing to a gold number in one of the front rooms. Hard money training.

Canadian officials have banned most carry-on luggage for U.S.-bound passengers following a failed Christmas Day plot to blow up a plane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Transport Canada said Monday that passengers may only carry medical devices, small purses, cameras, laptop computers, canes, walkers, diaper bags, musical instruments and bags containing “life-sustaining items.”

Travelers headed for the United States have been allowed to carry on only one bag since Saturday, following 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s alleged attempted to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight as it prepared to land in Detroit on Friday.

Transport Canada said it is trying to alleviate backlogs at security checkpoints, after passengers complained of chaos and long lines at Pearson International Airport in Toronto over the weekend and Monday morning.

Police are now helping with security at four of Canada’s biggest airports after Transport Canada requested assistance. Police are performing a secondary search of passengers after they pass the main security check point at airports in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta. About 40 Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers are doing searches at Pearson.

Transport Canada spokesman Patrick Charette said the measures are expected to remain in place for at least several days.

“We hope the restrictions on those carry-on baggage will help to assure the effectiveness and efficiency of security screening,” Charette said.

At the Toronto airport Monday morning, every U.S.-bound passenger was subjected to a pat-down and luggage was inspected by hand. Getting through the checks took about three hours, with some information boards citing the security measures for several delays and cancelations.

Trish Krale of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority said Monday went somewhat more smoothly at Pearson after a very difficult weekend. More than 130 flights were canceled.

Air Canada and its affiliate Jazz canceled several short-haul flights to the U.S. due to security delays. Air Canada consolidated flights and operated larger aircraft on some routes — particularly from Toronto to destinations in the Northeastern U.S.

“We appreciate the cooperation and understanding of our customers during this challenging time and ask them to assist us in getting them to their destination faster by bringing as little carry-on as possible,” Duncan Dee, Air Canada’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement. “Air Canada is doing everything it can to maintain its schedule, despite the delays caused by security screening issues outside its control. However, our number one priority remains the safety and security of our customers and staff.”

One woman said the lines are the worst she’s seen during her family’s annual Christmas trek to Canada.

“This is probably five times the lines we’ve ever experienced,” said Christin Grand, who was traveling home to Atlanta with her three children and husband. “We come up every Christmas and never experienced lines like this. We usually show up an hour and fifteen minutes before our flight and we’re two plus hours before and it’s still crazy.”

Andre Belanger, a Montreal resident flying to Fort Lauderdale from Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, didn’t mind that he was sent back to check in a carry-on bag. Hard money training.

Long before settling amid the soaring peaks of southwestern Colorado, where she helped create a ski experience unlike any other in North America, Jen Brill learned to carve turns on blue ice at some of the better known ski resorts in the East.

“I remember seeing sheets of ice for hundreds of feet and just trying to hold on,” Brill recalled.

No longer does Brill concern herself with what Eastern skiers sometimes refer to with a bit of humor and hyperbole as “bullet proof” ice.

At Silverton — the ski area Brill opened with her husband, Aaron, 10 years ago — the only ice she sees is a snow-dusted frozen cascade she sometimes cruises past on her snowboard while in powder up to her waist.

Silverton is buried under about 400 inches of natural snowfall each year, so the only question about conditions there each day concerns the depth of snow on hill — belt-high or only knee-deep?

The differences between skiing in the East and West are significant and many: altitude, acreage, snow and weather are all different, starkly so at times.

Eastern skiers all have stories of fighting through miserable, face-stinging icy winds and generally wetter conditions that are more common at Appalachian elevations (usually between 1,000-4,000 feet) than in the higher, drier climes of the Rockies, where lifts carry skiers well beyond 10,000 feet above sea level.

But some of the best competitive skiers the United States has ever produced — World Cup champion and Olympic medalist Bode Miller, for example — grew up carving turns in the Northeast, where skiers learn by necessity at an early age the kind of knee angle and weight transfer required for setting an edge in hardpack or ice.

Brill grew up in New York and her parents normally drove north for ski vacations in New England at places like Killington, Vt. If the wind-chill factor dropped close to zero, or if skiers were getting pelted with sleet or freezing rain, she bundled up and got out there anyway.

“We drove four hours … so my parents were like, ‘You’re going skiing no matter what,’ and it made me tougher,” Brill recalled.

There are big-mountain experiences to be had in the East at places like Sugarloaf USA in Maine (2,820 vertical feet), where Miller and snowboard cross Olympic gold medalist Seth Wescott trained.

Most of the trails in the East are carved out below the tree line and are well defined. Because Eastern ski areas rely heavily on snowmaking, venturing into the trees, even for the best skiers, can be difficult and dangerous much of the year, though certainly possible after a blizzard or later in the season during a good snow year.

Snowmaking has made the conditions at larger Eastern resorts like Sunday River in Maine, or Stowe or Sugarbush in Vermont, very dependable. At Sunday River, more than 90 percent of the resort is open for skiing for about four solid months. Although there is snowmaking in the West as well, if it’s a bad snow year, skiers may not be able to get to some of the best terrain in open bowls or in the trees, the things that make skiing in the West special.

Darcy Liberty, who grew up in Maine and now handles public relations for Sunday River, spent several years living in Colorado, working part of that time at Winter Park.

She describes Eastern and Western ski areas as “two different products.”

“I don’t consider there to be direct competition between ski areas in the East and out West,” she said. “Every ski area in the world is competing for skiers and snowboarders interested in the sport, but when it comes to daily operations, you’re mostly looking for skiers in a specific radius.”

With its 1,900 snow guns, Sunday River was able to open as early as October this season.

As snowmaking capacity and grooming techniques have improved over the years, as lifts have become more modern, and as mountains have expanded their trail selections, skiing in the East has become progressively better, from places like Snowshoe, W.Va., to Mont Sainte Anne in Quebec, Canada.

Snowmaking also allows Eastern mountains to offer freestyle skiers and snowboarders half pipes and terrain parks as good as anywhere.

And certainly, the East has its share of glorious ski days — even a power day here and there. Spring skiing, when the snow really softens up, can be exceptional in the East and last into May in Maine.

Both sides of the continent have breathtaking scenery, but with differing contours — softer and more tree-lined in the East, while western ranges like the San Juans or Tetons inspire awe with their sharply rising rock-faced, above-tree line peaks.

Neither side of the country has a monopoly on charming mountain towns, though again, there are differences.

Just outside Sunday River sits Bethel, a more than 200-year-old community which “optimizes the cute New England town,” Liberty says. In the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Jackson and North Conway are both renowned for their rustic appeal, stunning views of the famous Presidential Range and proximity to ski areas like Wildcat and Black Mountain. Hard money training.

Investigators piecing together a brazen attempt to bring down a trans-Atlantic airliner said Sunday the suspect tucked a small bag holding his deadly concoction on his body, using an explosive that would have been easily detected with the right airport equipment.

His success in smuggling and partially igniting the material on Friday’s flight to Detroit prompted the Obama administration to promise a sweeping review of aviation security.

Adding to the airborne jitters, a second Nigerian man was detained Sunday from the same Northwest flight to Detroit after he locked himself in the plane’s bathroom. Officials reported that he was belligerent but genuinely sick, and that, in an abundance of caution, the plane was taken to a remote location for screening before passengers were let off.

Investigators concluded he posed no threat. Despite the government’s decision after the attempted Friday attack to mobilize more air marshals, none was on the Sunday flight from Amsterdam, according to a government report obtained by The Associated Press.

Stiffer boarding measures met passengers at gates as authorities warned travelers to expect extra delays returning home from holidays. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announced a review of air safety on two broad fronts, saying the government will investigate its systems for placing suspicious travelers on watch lists and for detecting explosives before passengers board flights.

Both lines of defense were breached in an improbable series of events Christmas Day that spanned three continents and culminated in a struggle and fire aboard a Northwest jet shortly before its safe landing in Detroit. Law enforcement officials believed the suspect tried to ignite a two-part concoction of PETN and possibly a glycol-based liquid explosive, setting off popping, smoke and some fire but no deadly detonation.

Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, an Islamic devotee once dubbed “the Pope” as a sign of respect by classmates, was released from a Michigan hospital in the custody of federal marshals Sunday after being treated for burns. He is charged with attempting to destroy an aircraft and placing a destructive device in a plane.

Abdulmutallab’s lawyer said Sunday that he is now in a federal prison in Milan, Mich.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano hastened to assure people that flying is “very, very safe.”

She said the suspect in Friday’s attack “was stopped before any damage could be done. I think the important thing to recognize here is that once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have.”

That brought a sharp rebuke from Rep. Peter King of New York, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee. “It’s not reassuring when the secretary of Homeland Security says the system worked,” King said. “It failed in every respect.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, said, “It’s amazing to me that an individual like this who was sending out so many signals could end up getting on a plane going to the U.S.”

An apparent malfunction in a device designed to detonate the high explosive PETN may have been all that saved the 278 passengers and the crew aboard Northwest Flight 253. No undercover air marshal was on board and passengers and crew subdued the suspect when he tried to set off the explosion. He succeeded only in starting a fire on himself.

Law enforcement officials say Abdulmutallab hid a condom or condom-like pouch below his torso containing PETN, the primary ingredient in detonating cords used for industrial explosions.

Airport “puffer” machines that blow air on a passenger to collect and analyze residues would probably have detected the powder, as would bomb-sniffing dogs or a hands-on search using a swab, they said, but most passengers in airports only go through magnetometers, which detect metal rather than explosives. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Abdulmutallab told authorities after his arrest that his plan originated with al-Qaida’s network inside Yemen, a link the U.S. government has avoided making so far. Napolitano said there was no indication yet that Abdulmutallab is part of a larger terrorist plot, although his possible ties to al-Qaida are still under investigation.

A video posted online four days before the bombing attempt featured an al-Qaida operative in Yemen threatening the U.S. and saying “we are carrying a bomb.” It was not immediately clear whether the speaker was anticipating Friday’s bombing attempt.

Abdulmutallab had been placed on a watch list with more than 500,000 names in November, but not one that denied him passage by air into the U.S. Officials said he came to the attention of U.S. intelligence last month when his father, a prominent Nigerian banker, reported to the American Embassy in Nigeria about his son’s increasingly extremist views.

Despite that red flag, Abdulmutallab was not elevated to more exclusive — and perhaps manageable — lists of some 18,000 people who are designated for additional security searches or barred from flying altogether. Napolitano said that would have required “specific, credible, derogatory information” that authorities didn’t have.

A U.S. official said the father’s concerns were shared among those in the embassy, including liaison personnel from other agencies based there, such as the FBI. The alert was then relayed to Washington and again shared among agencies such as the State, Justice and Homeland Security departments, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Nigerian Information Minister Dora Akunyili said Abdulmutallab, who was living in London, sneaked back into Nigeria to catch the flight that would take him to Amsterdam and Detroit. She did not elaborate on how he entered the country.

Abdulmutallab had a U.S. visa issued in June 2008 and valid through June 2010.

Just as passenger shoe searches became the order of the day after Richard Reid tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with PETN hidden in his shoes, the latest attempted assault could bring new layers of screening and delays. Among the possibilities: fuller and more frequent body pat-downs and scanning.

“I think we have to head in that direction,” King said. “Yes, there is some brief violation of privacy with a full body scan. But on the other hand, if we can save thousands of lives, to me, we have to make that decision.”

Gibbs was noncommittal on that question. “We obviously want to review and make sure that all the detection capabilities that are supposed to happen, whether it’s a pat-down, whether it’s additional security selection — that that happens in each instance.”

Gibbs appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Napolitano spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union” as well as on NBC and ABC. King appeared on CBS; McConnell appeared on ABC. Hard money training.

A major winter storm lumbering across America’s midsection promised a white Christmas for some but brought headaches for travelers caught on slick, icy roads or dealing with canceled and delayed flights.

The worst of the storm was heading northeast across the region Thursday, carrying heavy snow, sleet and rain to a large swath of the Plains and the Midwest.

Up to two feet (two-thirds of a meter) of snow was possible in some areas by Christmas Day.

The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings early Thursday for Kansas and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska and the Texas Panhandle.

It cautioned that travel would be extremely dangerous in those areas through the weekend and that anyone taking to the road should pack a winter survival kit including flashlight and water in case of emergency.

Scott Blair, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Topeka, Kansas, said the wind was becoming a serious issue in central Kansas, with gusts reaching 40 mph (64 kph).

“We’re going to see blowing snow,” Blair said. “The big concern comes later when we see snowfall with the wind, causing reduced visibility.”

Slippery roads were blamed for at least 14 deaths. Icy roads were blamed for accidents that killed at least seven people in Nebraska, four in Kansas, one each in Minnesota and Oklahoma, and one near Albuquerque, N.M.

More than 100 scheduled flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport were canceled Thursday and dozens more were delayed, according to the airport’s Web site. The Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City shut down one of its three runways and canceled nearly 30 flights.

The Chicago Department of Aviation said there were no major delays early Thursday at O’Hare International Airport or Midway International Airport. On Wednesday, it reported more than 200 cancellations at O’Hare and about 60 at Midway.

Strong winds and ice caused power outages in Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa.
Hard money training.

The sky is gray. The wind is whipping. It is December in Minnesota, where lakes flash-freeze each winter into barren plains of snow and ice. Tighe Belden, a guide with Lakawa School of Kiteboarding, adjusts a line tethered to a client on skis. He whips the cord to puff up a kite lying limp on the ice ahead. “Hold on tight!” Belden shouts, the kite’s canopy rising, filling with wind and shooting into the sky.

Kiteboarding on skis—or snowkiting—might, like many extreme winter activities, seem insane; after all, its participants hook themselves up to huge lofted parachutes and rocket across miles of frozen void on wind power alone. But as extreme winter sports go, snowkiting is actually fairly accessible—almost anyone willing to bundle up and strap on skis should get the hang of it. And, says Belden, “Most students require only one day to learn the basics.”

Of course, the learning curve for all winter adventure activities is not so quick. And yet, from ice climbing to backcountry skiing, these adrenaline-pumping sports are drawing increasing interest, as active vacationers sign up for novel travel opportunities: ice biking festivals, dogsledding clinics, bobsled workshops. Once practiced by just a few hearty souls, extreme winter sports have gone mainstream.

In Utah’s Wasatch Mountain Range, for example, where powder snow falls by the foot, Salt Lake City–based Ski Utah has designed a pioneering guided trip for aspiring backcountry skiers. For $250, the daylong, 21-mile Interconnect Tour provides intermediate and advanced skiers a chance to sample up to six ski resorts in eight hours—plus the swaths of backcountry terrain between them. Hard money training.

Amtrak trains on the East Coast are running on schedule or close to it after an electrical problem outside New York City stopped service up and down the East Coast for three hours.

Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole says delays have decreased for trains operating between Boston and Washington.

A low-voltage reading originating in northern New Jersey prompted Amtrak to stop trains at about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. Service was restored at about 11:30 a.m., with residual delays.

Amtrak was investigating what caused the low voltage reading.

Thousands of passengers were stranded in stations and on trains.

Cole said trains can continue running at low voltage but are routinely moved to the nearest station to avoid the possibility of a larger power failure. Hard money training.

Plane loads of ill and disadvantaged children “take off” for the North Pole from Chicago, Phoenix, San Antonio, Spokane and a number of other cities around the country.

“It was a mad house.”

That’s how Julee McCully, a screener for the Transportation Security Administration, described the security checkpoint at the normally quiet, orderly Spokane International Airport.

Carolers were crooning Christmas classics in the terminal lobby. Eighty of Santa’s elves were trying to get 60 kids from this year’s “nice” list through security for Alaska Airline’s secret Flight 1225 (get it?) to the North Pole. And alarms kept going off at the metal detector.

“It was all those jingle bells,” McCully said. “The elves had metal bells sewn onto their clothes and stuffed into these little purses that said ‘Elf Stuff.’ It was like a puzzle finding all the bells on each elf. My hands were covered in elf glitter after just the first pat-down.”

Elves? A secret flight to the North Pole? What is this, a Hallmark/Homeland Security Christmas special?

Well, yes, sort of.

Thanks to the efforts of airline and airport employees, the TSA, sponsors, donors and an army of  secret Santas, plane loads of seriously ill and/or disadvantaged children have been taking off for the North Pole not just from Spokane, but from Chicago, San Antonio, Phoenix and a sleigh-load of other cities around the country. Hard money training.

A major winter storm is promising to bring a white Christmas to parts of the West and Midwest, but not without threatening to cause long delays and tough driving conditions for countless holiday travelers.

The storm is expected to dump more than a foot of snow on parts of Colorado and Southern Utah by midday Wednesday, and blow east into the Plains states through Christmas Day. Blizzard warnings were likely on Christmas Eve in Kansas.

“Pretty much the entire central and southern Rockies are going to get snow, and then it’s going east and will drop more snow,” said Stan Rose, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pueblo, Colo.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds declared a state of emergency Tuesday. The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls, S.D. warned of treacherous travel conditions from Wednesday through Friday night, calling the storm “life threatening.”

The Nebraska State Patrol urged drivers Wednesday morning to use extreme caution when venturing out on the roads across the central third of the state because the roads are slick as freezing rain and snow had started to fall.

A day earlier a Colorado woman was killed when her SUV apparently hit black ice and slid across a median in western Nebraska.

In Nevada, multiple wrecks were reported in and around Reno as snow blanketed the area shortly before the Tuesday evening commute. No serious injuries were reported, the Reno Gazette-Journal newspaper reported.

Blustery weather had already snarled traffic in Arizona, with blizzard-like conditions shutting down roads and causing a pileup involving 20 vehicles Tuesday. South of Phoenix, a dust storm set off a series of collisions that killed at least three people.

A tropical jet stream pumping in moisture from the storm’s south was likely to cause plenty of snow as the storm headed into the Plains states.

A winter storm watch was in effect for most of southeast Colorado, the panhandle of Oklahoma and north Texas through Thursday. By Tuesday afternoon, light snow was falling in Salt Lake City. No major airport delays were reported there or in Denver, but holiday travelers across the region were warned to check with their airlines before arriving for flights.

Elsewhere, holiday travelers scrambled to adjust their plans before the snow storm hit.

In Denver, Sarah McAnarney and her husband planned to leave town Wednesday to visit family in Ozark, Mo., with their springer spaniel, Olive. But forecasts prompted them to skip a day of skiing in the Rockies and start driving a day early.

McAnarney said she was caught in a blizzard two weeks ago in the Rockies and needed four hours to drive 100 miles from Vail to Denver. She said she didn’t want to repeat the experience.

“I was driving through a whiteout,” she said Tuesday at a truck stop east of Topeka, Kan. “You couldn’t see over your headlights.”

Craig Rueschhoff, 35, and his girlfriend, Brenna Larson, in Des Moines, Iowa said they had planned to drive 210-miles to Columbus, Neb., to visit his parents, then on to visit Larson’s family in western Iowa, but were thinking of canceling the annual trip.

“We’ve had both my mom and her mom encourage us not to come if the weather is too bad,” he said. “They wouldn’t feel bad if we didn’t come. We’ve gotten their blessing.”

The winter conditions follow a weekend storm that dropped record snowfall and interrupted holiday shopping and travel on the East Coast. Delays from that storm sparked an unruly crowd that included passengers still on standby Tuesday at the Delta Air Lines terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. Police were called to help with crowd control.

Rose said holiday revelers in the West and Midwest should worry about the cold as well as the snow. Temperatures across Colorado on Christmas were not expected to get out of the 20s, with single-digits expected in the mountains. Hard money training.