Snow Shuts Twin Cities Airport : Weather: Mackinac Bridge in upper Michigan is closed to traffic because of high winds. Tornadoes in Tennessee spun off by thunderstorms kill two.

A blustery snowstorm shut down the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for part of the afternoon Sunday, one of the busiest travel days of the year, and canceled about 100 airline flights.

Thunderstorms along the storm’s southern edge spun off tornadoes in Tennessee, killing two people. High wind in Arkansas killed several cattle and pitched their carcasses into treetops.

The snowstorm ended a relatively warm, dry autumn in the upper Midwest. It was the latest date for Minnesota’s first significant snowfall of the season in about 20 years, according to the National Weather Service.

The Mackinac Bridge in upper Michigan was closed to traffic Sunday evening because of high winds. People in the Upper Peninsula were advised to stay off the roads because of blowing snow and decreasing visibility.

About six inches of snow fell in two hours at the airport in the Twin Cities suburb of Bloomington, reducing visibility to just one-eighth of a mile, airport spokesman John Ostrom said.

Flights during the morning were delayed and the airport was forced to shut for about 90 minutes in the afternoon, Ostrom said. One of the two main runways opened after the wind died and visibility improved.

About 32,000 people were scheduled to fly through Northwest Airlines’ Minneapolis hub Sunday, said airline spokesman Jon Austin. About 10% of those travelers were affected when an estimated 100 Northwest flights were canceled, he said.

In western Tennessee, tornadoes touched down in Crockett, Fayette, Weakley and Shelby counties, said Dan Pitchford, spokesman for the state Emergency Management Agency. One person was killed in the town of Friendship.

A second person died when two tornadoes touched down in the Memphis suburb of Germantown, according to the Shelby County Emergency Management Agency.

Wind gusted between 50 and 60 m.p.h. in parts of Arkansas. A mobile home was carried 20 yards and dropped upside down, Sharp County sheriff’s office dispatcher Donna Middlebrook said. The three people inside were treated for cuts and bruises.

“Three cows were killed. It put them up in some trees,” Middlebrook said. “We’ve got a johnboat about 30 feet off the ground in some pine trees.”

In the region of snowfall, more than 100 traffic accidents, mostly fender-benders but some with injuries, were reported in the Minneapolis area, said Lisa Dockery, a dispatcher at the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department.

Temperatures dropped as low as 8 below zero in Butte, Mont., and Rollinsville, Colo., had a wind-chill equivalent of 41 below.

In Nebraska, snow and ice brought down power lines.