An unusually late blast of winter weather in the US caused major disruptions to commuters travelling between Bermuda and the US East Coast yesterday.

Much of the region was hit by heavy snow, sleet and rain as a storm moved in from the middle of the country.

And that meant that several scheduled flights had to be grounded because conditions were too treacherous to take off.

A spokeswoman for American Airlines confirmed that yesterday morning's scheduled departure from New York's JFK Airport had to be scrapped because of poor weather conditions.

Last night's flight also failed to get off the ground -- because of dangerous cross-winds in Bermuda. That will now get in at 9 a.m. today and return to the US an hour later.

But the spokeswoman added that this morning's arrival, due in at 11.30 a.m., should be in on time.

Continental Airlines flight from Newark also had to be cancelled because of bad weather.

Fortunately the gateway cities of Boston and Atlanta were not as badly affected by the storm, allowing Delta Airlines to run its two daily flights out of the cities without delays.

And US Airways flights from Baltimore and Philadelphia were also able to make it to the Island.

"Everything went ahead as usual and is expected to do so again tomorrow,'' a Delta spokeswoman said last night.

An Airport spokesman said that although there had been some delays, impact on the Island had been "minimal''.

The atrocious weather also caused massive disruptions to roads across the region and many homes suffered blackouts as power cables came down in strong winds.