Upper Midwest Blasted With Snow, Hundreds of Flights Canceled

But don’t look for it to be the picturesque light, fluffy snow that often occurs in the dead of winter, he said – much of it will be wet and heavy.

Anywhere from 3.5 to 8.2 inches of snow fell overnight Friday across DeKalb County, according to the National Weather Service in Chicago, with areas to the north closer to Wisconsin seeing more.

While winter has not officially begun, the shovels and snow blowers were out from South Dakota through southern Minnesota, Iowa and southern Wisconsin to northern IL and Indiana.

Chicago’s O’Hare worldwide Airport had recorded 7 inches of snow by midday Saturday, which forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights. The front will head northeast to Canada late on Saturday and into Sunday.

Records from the National Weather Service note that 24cm of snow dropped over the area in an in November 1951. 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.

Jeruzal says 5 to 8 inches are expected along a corridor from Battle Creek toward Port Huron, though a few could get as much as 10 inches.

Southeastern South Dakota got up to 18 inches of snow on Friday, National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Terry said, while amounts of a foot or more – 17 inches in one spot – were common in northern Iowa.

Southern South Dakota found poor traveling states and major snowfall with a foot or more of snow.

Many other flights were delayed.

While it is not unusual for snow to fall in the Midwest just before Thanksgiving, with the hazardous conditions brought by the snow, the Iowa Department of Transportation warned residents in Des Moines who are planning to depart early for the Thanksgiving holiday to forego travelling until further notice is given.

The resulting weather is likely to be another spell of snow in the Upper Midwest – but heavy rain and thunderstorms across the entire Mississippi Valley – throughout the Thanksgiving weekend.

“Some of those amounts are pretty impressive for this time of year”, he added.