The storm produced an unrelenting band of heavy snow that hit McHenry and Lake counties particularly hard.
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Flight- tracking website FlightAware.com showed Saturday morning that about 250 flights in and out of Chicago’s O’Hare worldwide Airport had been canceled.
Matt Krienke, a hardware store manager, said business had been good leading up to the storm, but road conditions and sidewalks had become “very, very, very, very slick”.
Snow in November is common in the region, but more than 6 inches is somewhat unusual.
The Illinois Tollway, which maintains interstate tollways in 11 counties, said it had 185 snowploughs ready to go and 84,000 tonnes of salt stockpiled.
The first snowfall of the season brought amounts ranging from a few inches to 20 from South Dakota through MI earlier in the weekend.
The weather service reported temperatures in single- and low double-digits on Sunday in northern IL, including Chicago, where residents were digging out of more than 11 inches of snow – the highest November total in 120 years. Midway International Airport had cancelled about 110 flights.
It was the all-time snowiest first event of the season in Chicago since records began in 1884.
Northern Illinois is bracing for its first snow of the season with 6 to 10 inches expected.
Indianapolis was to receive 1 to 3 inches of snow.
Parts of Iowa, northwest IL and southern Wisconsin could reach zero or below, the weather service said. The weather service said it’ll start off as rain and snow early Friday night, but turn into wet snow through Saturday afternoon.
People fired up snowblowers and dug out their shovels Saturday afterthe storm system dumped anywhere from three to 20 inches of snow across parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. Naperville had 6.4 inches of snow as of midafternoon, and Romeoville had 4.7 inches as of early evening, according to the weather service.
National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Sullivan says that Marengo, Ill. got 12 inches overnight and it continues to fall, while Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport had four inches of snow.
Temperatures plunged behind the front.
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A spokesman for the South Dakota Highway Patrol says troopers have been busy with weather-related crashes in the Sioux Falls and Rapid City areas.
