Unusually early, extremely cold weather has blanketed much of the Midwest over the weekend of November 20 through 22, dumping record amounts of snow in the process.
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“After the first significant snowstorm of the season for parts of the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, conditions are forecast to be less active with just a few patchy areas of lake effect snow remaining”, the National Weather Service said in a statement.
Between 5 and 8 inches of snow had fallen on far northern IN and southern MI by Saturday afternoon, with accumulations growing ever-smaller farther to the south, the weather service said. And the county record for snow on any two-day span in November-13 inches-was set in 1896.
Southside True Value Hardware manager Matt Krienke said business had been good in the days leading up to the storm in the Janesville, but that it had become “very, very, very, very slick”.
National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Sullivan says that Marengo, Ill. got 12 inches overnight and it continues to fall, while Chicago’s O’Hare worldwide Airport had four inches of snow.
Alizha Demunck, who works at the Little Chocolates candy store, says the snow wasn’t slowing shoppers from seeking out handmade chocolates.
Snow totals have ranged in northern IL from about a foot in Marengo, which is 65 miles northwest of the city, to a rain and snow mix in the city itself.
The season’s first major snowfall meant digging out for many but was greeted with aplomb by others. Mundelein received 16.9 inches of snow, Woodstock got 13.5 inches, Buffalo Grove got 11.5 inches and 9.5 inches of snow fell on Westchester.
Temperatures plunged behind the front.
High temperatures may reach only as high as 40F (4C) in the mid-Atlantic, to 50F in the south (10C).
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Fargo, N.D., was forecast to dip to 11 degrees. Operations were expected to return to normal on Sunday, with only a few cancellations.
