Flying Today? Care to Place a Friendly Wager?

The airlines are being friendly with Hurricane Ivan rescheduling...but what about The Tropical Depression Formerly Known as Ivan?

Gothamist has a 9:30 PM flight to Indianapolis tonight, and TWC is calling for rain starting around lunchtime, with potential thunderstorms joining the party at 4. The airline I'm flying doesn't have a ton of weather information on their site--basically a syndicated happy map of the USA with some clouds and suns, and a link to Meteorlogix, now wx.com, which looks like it *could* be impressive but is giving me forecasts for June 24. Come on, guys.

Gothamist will probably monitor the USAToday travel page, which links to real-time FAA Air Traffic Control System airport status. So far so good at LGA, though there already appear to be delays in Philadelphia.

I've dug around a bit at Airliners.net and Airdisaster.com looking for a broad view on airline weather policy, but, as you might imagine, those sites are for plane geeks, not weather geeks. What I did find was some interesting information on yesterday's O'Hare flight that blew an engine after taking off into a rather large flock of birds. (Check out the hilarious disclaimers for "graphic imagery" in the slide show. Who knew they loved birds in
Chi-town?) The thread on Airliners.net expressed some frustration at the local coverage and their lack of even the most basic understanding of plane mechanics. The exception? Channel 2's weatherman Jim Tilmon, who is a retired American Airlines captain.

Related: Chicagoist on the goose meeting his master