Record number of Americans expected to travel for holidays

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- A record number of people are traveling this holiday season. According to AAA, over 100 million people across the U.S. are expected to take to the sky or the hit the roads.

An estimated 515,000 travelers will go through Mineta San Jose International Airport during Christmas and New Year holiday travel. That's 7 percent more this year compared to last year.

Wednesday's calm weather makes it a perfect day to get away leaving the Bay Area, but bad weather in the Midwest is expected to cause flight delays later in the day.

Over 40 million people are in the storm zone heading into Christmas. On Tuesday, dozens of flights were cancelled at SFO because of bad weather.

People hitting the roads will be joined by a record number of drivers this Christmas and New Year's travel season.

More than 91 million people across the U.S. will be traveling by car, which will impact traffic.

And so will snow. The Lake Tahoe area got three feet of the white stuff in just 24 hours.

"We're expecting traffic. They will be traffic and lots of snow," said Audrey Guagliardo, who is off to Reno for the holidays.

One big drivers of the record number of drivers is the lowest gas prices in about 7 years.

The average price for gas in California is $2.75 a gallon. Nationwide, it's even lower at $2.00 a gallon.

"It's perfect. It's like a free gift," said San Jose resident, Jim Rothwell, of the low gas prices.