Winter storm gathers momentum: Who's due for pre-Thanksgiving snow?

Parts of the Upper Midwest may face up to eight inches of snow and visibility of less than a mile.

|
Weather Underground/AP
This NOAA satellite image taken Friday at 12:45 a.m. Eastern time shows a trough of low pressure swinging eastward across the Great Lakes with snow showers across Wisconsin and Michigan. An area of low pressure over the Hudson Bay is moving eastward with it's associated cold front. This boundary produces rain showers across eastern New England. Similar conditions will accompany this front as it moves into the Atlantic from the coastal Carolinas into central Florida. A broad area of high pressure over the Ohio and Tennessee valleys brings mostly sunny skies.

Parts of the midwest can expect heavy snowfall and perilous driving conditions this weekend when the season’s first widespread snowstorm blankets the region.

Residents of Chicago, Des Moines, Iowa, and Saginaw, Mich., can all expect enough snow to require shoveling and plowing, according to AccuWeather forecasts. The Weather Channel has added Wisconsin's Milwaukee, Madison, Quad Cities, and Rockford to that list. Chicago-O’Hare airport may face delays on Saturday and maybe late Friday evening, in addition to smaller regional airports.

The Weather Channel predicts the Upper Midwest may face six inches of snow in 12 hours or 8 inches of snow in 24 hours.

"In the Midwest, the most likely area for several inches of snow to fall is from central Iowa to northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and into part of central Lower Michigan," said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brian Wimer. "For portions of Wisconsin, northern Illinois and central Michigan, it will seem like a storm in the middle of the winter, rather than a storm during the middle of November.”

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for southeast South Dakota, where as much as eight inches of snow is expected by Friday night. Forecasters predict wind gusts up to 20 mph will blast snow into a white fog, causing reduced visibility of less than a mile in some areas. After the snow, freezing temperatures in the mid-20s will choke the region.

Weekend snowfall will likely affect residents throughout the state of Michigan, but drivers in the Upper Peninsula especially should be aware of potentially dangerous road conditions, forecasters say.

Snowy, cold weather hit northern Michigan on Thursday, causing hazardous driving conditions on US highway 41 and elsewhere, according to state police. At least two dozen car crashes occurred, including nine alone in Ely Township.

Wind gusts up to 45 mph and three inches of snow may diminish visibility on Friday.

Winter storm watches are in effect for the Lower Peninsula from Friday evening to Sunday – five to eight inches of snow is forecasted for the western side of the state.

Saturday may be the heaviest snow day, and the Detroit area is expected to receive several inches of snow.

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Winter storm gathers momentum: Who's due for pre-Thanksgiving snow?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/1120/Winter-storm-gathers-momentum-Who-s-due-for-pre-Thanksgiving-snow
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe