Raleigh-Durham is back in a 1,915-flight thunderstorm ground stop

RDU's second thunderstorm ground stop of the afternoon ballooned from 156 flights to 1,915 with 87-minute average delays and a 9 PM ET end time, the O'Hare and Midway terminal stops the FAA had teed up landed as en route flow restrictions instead, Boston's wind ground delay program was cancelled, and NOAA Hurricane Hunters found Tropical Depression Two had crossed 39 mph to become Tropical Storm Bertha at 8 PM ET, with a watch from the Florida Panhandle to Louisiana and a slow track toward New Orleans by Wednesday.

RDU's second ground stop is the live one, and it is much bigger than the first

Raleigh-Durham went back into a CDM ground stop at 6:39 PM ET, and by the FAA's 7:49 PM ET update it was holding 1,915 flights with a 131-minute maximum and an 87-minute average delay, set to run until 9 PM ET with a medium probability of extension. The advisory (ADVZY 142, signed 23:49Z) attributes the stop to weather and thunderstorms, with departures held at ZDC and ZNY facilities.

That is a sharp escalation from the first RDU stop three hours ago, which held 156 flights with a 39-minute average and ended at 5:30 PM ET. The flight count has grown roughly twelvefold. RDU is an American Airlines focus city, so the brunt of the rebooking load falls on American's operation.

A compounding factor: WRAL reported around 7:40 PM ET that a single-engine plane was damaged while landing at RDU, briefly closing the airfield for a safety inspection. One commercial runway reopened within roughly 15 minutes, but a second runway remained temporarily closed while crews removed the disabled aircraft. The FAA's ground stop cause is thunderstorms, not the disabled aircraft, but a closed runway cuts arrival capacity at the same moment storms are metering traffic.

If you are flying through RDU tonight, check your flight status before heading to the airport, and watch for the 9 PM ET end time with that medium extension flag. American passengers can rebook through aa.com travel alerts; Delta and JetBlue advisories are at delta.com and jetblue.com. No storm-specific waiver for RDU has been posted as of publication.

O'Hare and Midway got en route restrictions, not terminal stops, as the evening wound down

The previous issue's headline put O'Hare and Midway "up next" for ground stops after 6 PM. They did not go into terminal ground stops. Instead, the FAA's evening operations plan (ADVZY 140, covering 8 PM ET and later) published en route flow restrictions to O'Hare: FCA016, an ORD airspace flow constraint, runs until 10:15 PM ET, and the WEST_TO_ORD route restriction runs until 11 PM ET, both driven by thunderstorms. That is en route metering of arrivals into the Chicago airspace, not a terminal ground stop that holds all inbound traffic on the ground.

The same advisory carried two other changes from three hours ago. Boston's wind ground delay program, which had been running since 4 PM ET averaging 32 minutes, was cancelled. And San Francisco's low-ceiling ground delay program ended at 6:59 PM ET. The evening plan lists TERMINAL PLANNED: NONE, meaning the FAA does not expect any more terminal ground stops or delay programs for the rest of tonight.

One mechanism worth flagging: staffing triggers reappeared for the evening shift. ZNY Area B, ZDC Area 1, and ZKC TRAIS all have staffing constraints through 10 to 11:30 PM ET, and the FAA explicitly extended the Florida-to-Northeast and South-to-DC route restrictions until 11 PM ET "due to staffing." En route restrictions across ZDC, ZJX, ZMA, ZTL, ZAU, and ZMP are winding down between 10 and 11 PM ET, with CDRs and SWAP statements closing out at CLT, DEN, PHX, and the NY Metro and Central Florida hotlines.

Tropical Storm Bertha is named, with a Gulf Coast airport watch ahead

At 8 PM ET, the National Hurricane Center issued Intermediate Advisory 6A: NOAA Hurricane Hunters found the depression had strengthened into Tropical Storm Bertha, the second named storm of the 2026 Atlantic season. As of the 0000 UTC advisory, Bertha was located about 110 miles south of Panama City, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph, moving west-northwest at 3 mph, and a minimum central pressure of 1004 mb. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles from the center.

A tropical storm watch runs from the Ochlockonee River in the Florida Panhandle westward to the Jefferson/Plaquemines Parish border in Louisiana, and a storm surge watch runs from the Alabama/Florida border to the mouth of the Mississippi River. The NHC said additional watches or warnings may be required tonight or Tuesday. The forecast track takes Bertha near or along the northern Gulf coast over the next several days, with some additional strengthening possible, and forecasters have pointed to southeast Louisiana near New Orleans as the highest-probability landfall zone around midday Wednesday.

For air travel, no terminal ground stop has been tied directly to the tropical system yet. The airport exposure builds over the week: Pensacola and Panama City (PNS/ECP) are in the watch zone tonight, with Mobile and New Orleans (MOB/MSY) in the path Tuesday into Wednesday. The system is forecast as a low-grade threat, mostly a rain and flood event rather than a wind event, but a slow drift along the coast means the same Gulf Coast airports could see intermittent tropical rainbands and reduced capacity for several days. No Bertha-specific airline waiver had been posted as of publication, though carriers typically issue rebooking exceptions once a named storm and watch are in place. Monitor nhc.noaa.gov for the next full advisory at 11 PM ET, and check airline advisories directly if you hold a ticket to Gulf Coast destinations this week.

Tracking: SFO's routine low-ceiling ground delay program ended at 6:59 PM ET. The convective day is winding down across the Southeast, with no terminal programs planned for the rest of tonight per the FAA's evening ops plan.

Sources: FAA ADVZY 142, FAA ADVZY 140, WRAL, NHC Advisory 6A, nasstatus.faa.gov.