quote:
Originally posted by CJK:
Oh JOY! Excuse me Julie but can I ask you a question? Of all the hundreds of Pluba members here, how many do you think are from Minnesota????
And who the Freak cares???? That's like me posting the weather forecast for Miami county in Peru, Indiana.
NOBODY cares because it's completely NOT relevant.
Um, check the news...it's not just ME in MN, but a large part of the midwest...and um, I dunno, it's happening on Christmas so it's affecting a lot of travelers across the country...and it's only begun.
http://kstp.com/news/stories/S1330994.shtml?cat=1The National Weather Service said the "significant winter storm" now underway will impact Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and North and South Dakota through Christmas Day.
The winter storm warning issued earlier this week is now in effect.
The weather service said up the heaviest snow will likely fall near the Minnesota-South Dakota border and in west central Minnesota--where amounts of 15 to 20 inches are possible.
Elsewhere precipitation could waiver between snow and freezing rain. The greatest potential for ice is in northern Iowa and southwest Wisconsin.
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Chief Meteorologist Dave Dahl said the Twin Cities could see six to 14 inches of snow by the end of the storm.
The NWS said several locations across southern Minnesota had received 2 inches of snow and as much as 3 inches in some places by 9 p.m. Wednesday.
The Minnesota Emergency Operations Center is tracking the storm and agencies' response to it.
In an update sent out Wednesday evening, the operations center said the Minnesota State Patrol Rochester district reporting a number of vehicles spinning off the road.
The metro, Mankato and Marshall districts were not any busier than usual. However, the State Patrol expects road conditions to deteriorate.
To respond to the storm, supervisors and troopers normally scheduled to be off on Friday will be on call.
According to the operations center, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has more than 800 snowplows at 154 truck stations in Minnesota--including more than 200 in the metro--ready to start clearing streets.
Homeland Security and Emergency Management officials are monitoring the storm and are in contact with emergency staff in all 87 Minnesota counties. They are ready to provide assistance if any county becomes overwhelmed.
"It's an unusually large storm, even for the Plains," said Scott Whitmore, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Topeka, Kan.
In northwest Kansas, snow started falling before sunrise Wednesday, after freezing rain had already iced up roads.
A stretch of Interstate 70 in western Kansas was snowpacked by mid-afternoon. The state Department of Transportation warned that travel would be almost impossible in northeast Kansas by Thursday afternoon.
"It's kind of hard to stay on the roads. You've got to go slow," said Jason Juhan, a clerk at the Love's truck stop in Goodland, Kan. "People are just trying to get through and get to where they need to as fast as they can."
Still, he saw an upside: "It's been a few years since we've actually had a white Christmas out this way."
The storm began in the southwest - where blizzard-like conditions shut down roads and caused a pileup involving 20 vehicles in Arizona on Tuesday - and spread east and north, prompting weather advisories from the Rocky Mountains to Lake Michigan and part of the Four Corners region.
In Colorado, numerous minor accidents prompted state transportation officials to close a section of Interstate 25 from Wellington, Colo., to Cheyenne, Wyo., for several hours. One accident on I-70 seriously injured a state snowplow driver.
Parts of Nebraska were coated with ice that was up to ¼-inch thick and a number of churches were already canceling Christmas Eve services in anticipation of more ice and snow. But residents were still waiting for a blizzard.
"It isn't nearly as bad as they said it would be," said jewelry-store owner Stan Soper of Ord, a town of about 2,300 in north-central Nebraska.
Slippery roads were blamed for at least six deaths - three in accidents on Interstate 80 in Nebraska, two in a crash on Interstate 70 in Kansas and one near Albuquerque, N.M. South of Phoenix, a dust storm set off a series of collisions that killed at least three people Tuesday.
In Chicago, more than 200 flights at O'Hare International Airport were canceled, along with about 60 flights out of Midway International Airport, the city's Aviation Department said.
Officials at Minneapolis St. Paul International said the weather will likely force them to operate only two of the four runways at any time to allow for crews to clear snow from the others.
Delta Airlines said due to the runway decision it planned to cancel up to 50 flights on its partners, like Pinnacle, Compass and Mesaba.
Mollie Sheridan, a 30-year-old artist from Philadelphia, had planned to fly to Ohio to be with her family for Christmas. Instead she was trying to sleep on a row of seats at Midway after Southwest Airlines canceled dozens of flights, including hers. She said her father was driving to Chicago to pick her up.
"I'm not that frustrated," Sheridan said. "I have a dad who loves me who's coming to get me. It hasn't spoiled my Christmas."
The storm forced the closure of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls warned of treacherous travel conditions from Wednesday through Friday night, calling the storm "life threatening."
Travelers scrambled to adjust their plans before the worst of the storm hit.
"I was going to wait a little longer, but when I woke up this morning I heard on the news that it was only going to get worse and worse, so I hit the road earlier than planned," said Rachel Ahrens, of Papillion, Neb., who stopped for gas Wednesday off Interstate 80 in Des Moines, Iowa, on her way to Ames, Iowa.
Jeff Cox, manager of Southtown Liquors in Albert Lea in southern Minnesota, near the Iowa border, said the store had seen a steady stream of customers amid snow and freezing rain.
"They don't want to be stuck home with nothing," Cox said.
The winter blast follow a weekend storm that dropped record snowfall and interrupted holiday shopping and travel on the East Coast. Tens of thousands of customers in West Virginia and Virginia remained without power Wednesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.