Scheduled for MTD-ORD-SEA tomorrow. AA called me via auto notification at noon today to tell me MDT to ORD was cancelled. I called the EXP line to rebook.

ORD - SEA flight is not cancelled, just MDT to ORD. Weather skipped Harrisburg -- no ice no new snow at all. They offered me an earlier flight tomorrow out of MDT to ORD and said they expected orginally scheduled ORD-SEA to be a go.

Problem is the earlier flight out of MDT is 4 hours earlier and pretty much precludes the business I had scheduled on Thursday. So I had to decline.

There is no new weather predicted later in the day in Harrisburg, so I asked the EXP agent, how is this a weather related delay when the earlier flight is not cancelled, no new weather is predicted at MDT, and ORD, where the actual storm hit is not cancelled?

His answer? "I don't know." And that is probably true, he doesn't. Can't even guess because it makes little to no sense.

MDT spokesperson was interviewed on the news this evening and said even though MDT was not hit it was the places departing to that were the problem yesterday and this morning, but that ops were back to normal tomorrow and even later today.

The only possible explanation I can come up with is they are predicting, 30+ hours ahead of time that they will run out of de-icer at MDT by later afternoon tomorrow. But is that weather related or just poor planning? This storm was predicted many, many days prior to it hitting. They couldn't plan to need more de-icer? Clearly the weather related cancel gets them off the hook for the hotel bill.

I come to this conclusion because I have been stranded several times previously at smaller airports with AA for days on end when they ran out of de-icer.

So, thoughts? Am I missing something here?