More airport snarls as rain ushers cold blast to Tampa

Storms across the Midwest and moving into the Mid-Atlantic today are taking their toll on air traffic, forcing a growing number of cancellations and delays at Tampa International Airport.

By midday, roughly 20 departures and arrivals at the airport were canceled with many centered in the Washington and Chicago airports. Another handful of flights in and out of Tampa have been delayed.

Snarls in air traffic are expected to grow worse throughout the day as more snow reaches the Mid-Atlantic.

One of the major problems is at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, where weather is delaying arrivals about 40 minutes, an improvement on the two-hour delays of earlier today.

Flights to two airports in Washington as well as into Baltimore make up the bulk of delays and cancellations of flights arriving and departing the Tampa airport.

The storm system battering northern states is bringing rain to West Central Florida today, and it will probably drag into the early evening in the Tampa Bay area.

Forecasters do not expect the line of showers to bring another round of violent weather some places in the area received last week.

The National Weather Service says rain should show up in the early afternoon and be gone from the region by sunset. Some showers could continue to appear around Tampa until about 10 p.m.

The rain will be ahead of a cold front that could bring another freezing night to the strawberry growing region in eastern Hillsborough County.

Forecasts call for temperatures to hit freezing or just below Thursday morning.

Unlike a month ago, when cold fronts strung together 11 consecutive nights of freezing weather, this freeze spell looks like it will last only one night.

This freeze should not cause the problems folks around Plant City saw in January.

Farmers are expected to pump only one night, and the impacts should not be as severe as residents saw after 11 nights, said Robyn Felix, spokeswoman for the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

Though groundwater levels may drop, they should recover quickly if the freeze lasts only one night, she said.

Still, residents should turn off wells that do not have an automatic shutoff device, Felix said.

The aquifer fell 15 feet during the first freezing night last month - when the temperature dropped to 29 degrees in the area - but completely returned by the next night, she said.

The expected freeze Thursday morning is not expected to last as long or be as severe.

The weather service forecast calls for temperatures around Plant City to reach 34 degrees at about 4 a.m. Thursday and rise above freezing after 7 a.m.