A bit late, winter grips Midwest and Northeast

A woman clears snow from in front of her car on Front St. in Berea Fri­day. It’s finally look­ing like win­ter in the Mid­west as the season’s first big snow­storm crawls across the region, leav­ing skiers and snow-reliant busi­nesses giddy but greet­ing Fri­day com­muters with a sloppy, slip­pery drive. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Mark Duncan)

CARLA K. JOHNSON

Asso­ci­ated Press

CHICAGO — It’s finally look­ing like win­ter in parts of the Mid­west and North­east that are see­ing their first big snow­storm of the sea­son, leav­ing skiers and snow-reliant busi­nesses giddy but pre­sent­ing Fri­day com­muters with a sloppy, slip­pery drive.

After start­ing as one of the warmest and brownest win­ters in recent his­tory, parts of Wis­con­sin, Iowa and Mis­souri were blan­keted in white before the storm moved across Illi­nois and points east. Snow­plow dri­vers were out in force overnight in Chicago, as six to eight inches of snow and plum­met­ing tem­per­a­tures moved in.

Nine inches of snow fell in north­ern Indi­ana before skies cleared early Fri­day. Fore­cast­ers said cold winds still could whip up lin­ger­ing lake effect snow show­ers and push snow­fall on Lake Michigan’s south­ern shore above a foot, while Michigan’s Upper Penin­sula braced for sim­i­lar totals before the storm con­tin­ued its east­ward roll through Ohio and into New England.

In a typ­i­cal year, such a storm would hardly reg­is­ter in the Upper Mid­west. But the atmos­pheric pat­terns, includ­ing the Pacific pat­tern known as La Nina, that have con­spired to make this an unusu­ally icy win­ter in Alaska have kept it abnor­mally warm in parts of the lower 48 states accus­tomed to more snow.

For Steve Longo, a 47-year-old chi­ro­prac­tor from Wauwatosa, Wis., the wait to try out the cross coun­try skis he got for Christ­mas was excru­ci­at­ing. He and friend Alex Ng, 56, wasted no time hit­ting the trails at the Lapham Peak cross coun­try ski area, about 25 miles west of Milwaukee.

“I wasn’t wor­ried,” Longo said. “I was just anxious.”

“This is Wis­con­sin,” a con­fi­dent Ng said. “There’s going to be snow.”

While the dry weather has been an unex­pected boon to many cash-strapped com­mu­ni­ties, which have saved big by not hav­ing to pay for plow­ing, salt­ing and sand­ing their streets, it has hurt sea­son­able busi­nesses that bank on the snow.

“If peo­ple don’t see it in their yards they are not likely to come out and ski and snow­board so this is won­der­ful, won­der­ful, won­der­ful for us,” Kim Engel, owner of Sun­burst Ski area in Kewaskum in south­east­ern Wis­con­sin, said as she watched the snow come down out the window.

After a warm fall and early win­ter, the arrival of blus­tery weather had Vermont’s ski indus­try cel­e­brat­ing. The Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Day week­end is one of the most impor­tant mon­ey­mak­ing week­ends of the season.

“We are absolutely giddy, stoked, and the phones are ring­ing off the hook,” said Jen But­son, a spokes­woman for the Ver­mont Ski Areas Asso­ci­a­tion. “It’s what we’ve been hop­ing for. Our snow dances have paid off.”

The snow finally enabled the state’s snow­mo­bile orga­ni­za­tion, the Ver­mont Asso­ci­a­tion of Snow Trav­el­ers, to start open­ing some trails.

In upstate New York, the storm dumped up to 8 inches of snow on the south­ern Adiron­dack Moun­tains and forced scores of schools to can­cel or delay the start of classes. Until Thursday’s storm, Albany had received only 6.5 inches of snow this win­ter — about 10 inches less than nor­mal, accord­ing to the weather service.

Schools also delayed start times or can­celed classes alto­gether in Ohio, where spots along Lake Erie could get as much of a foot of snow by Sat­ur­day afternoon.

The storm was an annoy­ance for most com­muters, and author­i­ties said it caused hun­dreds of traf­fic acci­dents and at least three road deaths — two in Iowa and one in Mis­souri. And while some lucky grade-schoolers cheered an unex­pected day of sled­ding, hun­dreds of would-be air trav­el­ers had to scram­ble to come up with a Plan B.

More than 400 flights were can­celed at O’Hare Inter­na­tional Air­port in Chicago on Thurs­day, accord­ing to the Chicago Depart­ment of Avi­a­tion. Across town at Mid­way Inter­na­tional Air­port, more than 100 flights were canceled.

Posted by AP News on Jan 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.