A recent BBC news article showed that the Helsinki Finland Airport hadn't closed due to weather since 2003. They operate 3 runways, and see roughly 6 feet of annual snow fall. This airport is the best in the world at weather mitigation. Denver may not be #1, but the comparison for quality operations are both accurate, and appropriate. DIA runs 6 runways, has a fleet of employees and equipment to handle the storm, and do this every week. The flight operations are safe, computer aided, and state of the art.
Before we start this discussion, let's remember the havoc caused by multiple week delays in European airports like London's, Heathrow, or Paris, France's Roissy/Charles de Gaulle. The same timeframe was plagued by major shut downs at JFK, Newark, Dulles, Boston, and LaGuardia, and other select northeastern airports where employees didn't work as hard as they could have. Denver was a bit different, but was affected all the same, by other's actions.
To really see how Denver takes a snow storm, let's look at a schedule during an event. This is a 6 inch snow storm, and it has been going all day. The news calls this a blizzard, but traffic, air travel, and life generally continue here in the mile high city, unabated. Below I have gathered pdfs of the local weather at DIA, schedules for today's flights, and a few speed maps showing the average car travel in the city. I didn't say every street was dry, or that high speeds were advisable when you drive. I said traffic was moving along slowly and steadily! Only a handful of cancelled flights are on the board at the airport, only a few minute delays of flights, not hours. The weather service corroborates both the temperature, severity of the storm, precipitation, and outlook.
At the time of the documentation, CDOT is reporting only heavy traffic I-70 Eastbound Georgetown - Idaho Springs (Milemarker 228-221), and Heavy traffic resulted from snow conditions at the Eisenhower tunnel. Expect delays due to heavy traffic volume. Incident began January 9th, 2011 at 4:31pm.
You make your own decisions as to how DIA handles snow, they have been in the think of a snow storm for 18 hours at this point.
Information from During The Storm: I think they do a fine job. Based on the facts, don't you?
Information from directly after the storm.
The results of the storm were predictable, Denver came through without a hitch. Rush hour this morning wasn't great, but we all made it to work. The city slowed for 4 hours, but definitely didn't stop. The airport never closed either. Attached are the snow totals from south of Denver International Airport for the weather event on 1-9-2011 and 1-10-2011. The weather information shows a total of 8-9 inches of snow over the event, and a water content of about an inch. This morning the news had this to say;
The National Weather Service reports 6.5 inches of snow at DIA Monday morning. Most flights can expect standard deicing delays, Green says. Crews have been working since early Sunday morning to clear runways.
A recent BBC news article showed that the Helsinki Finland Airport hadn't closed due to weather since 2003. They operate 3 runways, and see roughly 6 feet of annual snow fall. This airport is the best in the world at weather mitigation. Denver may not be #1, but the comparison for quality operations are both accurate, and appropriate. DIA runs 6 runways, has a fleet of employees and equipment to handle the storm, and do this every week. The flight operations are safe, computer aided, and state of the art.