Snow and high winds from a winter storm moving across the northern U.S. caused dangerous travel conditions for millions of people on Wednesday, one of the busiest travel days of the year, and left more than 325,000 homes and businesses without power in the Great Lakes region.
The storm, which has been named Winter Storm Dorothy by The Weather Channel, triggered life-threatening travel conditions in southern Minnesota Wednesday morning. The strong winds prompted authorities to urge drivers to stay off the roads until conditions improved, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. Authorities in Michigan also warned of hazardous travel in the Upper Peninsula.
One person was injured when high winds blew a sign off of scaffolding at the Willis Tower in Chicago Wednesday morning, WGN reported. The incident happened at about 7:30 a.m. The sign hit two cars and smashed the windshield of one, injuring the driver's arm. He was taken to the hospital but was reported to be in good condition.
The National Weather Service in Chicago said a wind gust of 61 mph was recorded at O'Hare International Airport, and gusts higher than 50 mph were recorded at several places around the area.
Winds caused flight delays at airports in several cities, including Newark, Boston and Washington, D.C., according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Dozens of school districts from South Dakota to Wisconsin canceled classes Wednesday, The Associated Press reported. The University of Minnesota campus in the Twin Cities called off classes starting late Tuesday, and more than two dozen flights were canceled at the Twin Cities' main airport on the busiest pre-Thanksgiving travel day, the report added.
Elsewhere in the region, spinouts and crashes were common on snow-covered roads. More than 325,000 homes and businesses were in the dark as of Wednesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us. School districts in northern and western Wisconsin canceled classes after nearly a foot of snow fell overnight.
The majority of those without power were in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, where high winds toppled trees and downed power lines. Widespread outages were also reported in Wisconsin and Illinois.
There were even reports of thundersnow in Iowa as the mighty system blew through.
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1 Dead in Colorado; Roads Reopen in West
The storm contributed to one death in Colorado Tuesday as it moved across the Rockies and dumped up to 3 feet of snow.
Interstate 70 was closed in both directions on Tuesday afternoon just west of Vail after a pileup that killed one motorist and left three others injured. The accident involved three semi-trailers and one pickup truck, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Public Safety told The Weather Channel.
The snowstorm led to large shutdowns of numerous interstates, including I-70 and I-76 in eastern Colorado and I-80 in southern Wyoming, but those roads have since reopened.
At Denver International Airport, some 1,100 travelers were stranded overnight Monday during the fierce snowstorm, according to the Denver Post. Airport employees supplied the passengers with everything they needed to make it through the night inside the terminals, airport spokesperson Alex Renteria told the Post.
Officials say the storm dropped about 10 inches of snow at the airport. That led to the cancellation of about 30 percent of the airport’s average 1,600 daily flights, mostly for Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. The airport slowly resumed operations Tuesday evening.
"We were supposed to leave tomorrow but we saw the storm coming in," traveler Denae Van Westriean, who was attempting to fly to Phoenix a day early because of the storm, told CBS Denver on Monday. "We were having a huge family get-together, and we were getting really nervous about making it in time."
West of Denver, another stretch of I-70 was closed Tuesday morning due to a "major rockslide" near Idaho Springs, CDOT said.
The Colorado National Guard was called in to assist with response to the winter storm, CBS Denver said in a separate report.
The storm also left behind damage south of Yosemite National Park in California. Along U.S. Highway 6, strong winds overturned a semi truck and downed power lines near the town of Bishop on Monday, according to the AP.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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