Blizzard Grips Midwest and North Plains

A deadly snowstorm crippled parts of the Midwest and northern Plains Sunday with blizzard conditions as the region began a third week of subzero temperatures, closing highways and schools, stranding motorists, delaying airline flights and snapping power lines.

At least 26 deaths have been blamed on bad weather since Thanksgiving Day.

“It’s a bona fide blizzard,” National Weather Service meteorologist Gary Forster said in Des Moines. “It’s really dangerous. People don’t realize how the cold affects you.”

Blizzard warnings were issued for central Iowa and south-central and southeastern Minnesota as some areas reported up to a foot of snow and winds of 40 m.p.h.

Students at some universities and colleges in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota were told to stay home today, and hundreds of church services were canceled Sunday in parts of Minnesota and in Des Moines.

Drifts piled up more than three feet high in southeastern Minnesota, the weather service reported.

The arctic air mass that gripped the northern part of the nation for the last half of November stood firm, breaking record lows in 12 cities from the northern Rockies into Texas.

Seven cities recorded their coldest Novembers on record, and two cities had their snowiest Novembers to date.

Dangerously cold winds prevailed from the northern and central Plains to the upper Mississippi Valley, where wind-chill factors of 30 to 60 below zero were reported.

Snow fell as far south as Oklahoma and western Missouri. The storm stretched north to the Canadian border, west to the Plains and east to the upper Great Lakes.

A separate storm system spread snow across the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest. Oregon highways were covered with ice, and blizzard warnings were posted for north-central areas of the state.

One thing the Midwest storm did not stop was a football game between the Green Bay Packers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, played in a driving snowstorm at Lambeau Field at Green Bay, Wis. The Packers whipped the Florida team, 21-0.

The game was played in the heaviest snowstorm for a National Football League event since the Jan. 2, 1966, league championship in Green Bay. Winds gusted to 25 m.p.h. to 35 m.p.h., dropping the wind-chill factor to zero, with 10 inches of snow on the ground. The normally crowded Lambeau Field drew only a couple hundred fans.

Many weather-related traffic accidents forced the Michigan State Police to close the Mackinac Bridge connecting the state’s upper and lower peninsulas.

The weather service warned of poor travel conditions from Oklahoma to Michigan, saying winds gusting to 40 m.p.h. could block more roads with drifts. Most roads in southeast Minnesota were closed, including a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 90.

I-90 also was closed along a 40-mile portion in Wisconsin, and more than 150 stranded travelers spent the night at a high school.

In Iowa, the high wind and bitter cold sent wind chills in some areas plummeting to 50 below.

Traffic on Iowa roads and at airports came to a halt in the worst-hit areas, which included a broad band from the southwest corner of Iowa across the state to its northeast section.

Hundreds of truckers and a busload of students on a tour crowded into the Boondocks Truck Haven on I-35, near Williams, to wait out the storm.

The Iowa Highway Patrol sealed off a stretch of I-80 between Grinnell and Des Moines after a 15-car pileup near Mitchellville.

National Guard units were called in to help officials search for stranded motorists during the night, when wind-chill factors plummeted below the dangerous minus-50 level.

“There’s some idiots still out there,” said Ed Thornton of the Department of Transportation in Des Moines.

New snowfall totals were generally in the six- to eight-inch range. Garwin received 10 inches of snow by noon.

The high winds and ice snapped power lines in scattered sections. Airline flights at Des Moines were canceled or delayed, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport had only one runway open.