Blizzard conditions bear down on central US, closing schools and highways
From left, Stillwater public works employees James McGath and Cole Ruud run a water pump to prevent flood waters from coming up through the storm drains in Stillwater, Minnesota as the spring melt of a record snow season causes flooding along the St. Croix River Tuesday, April 25, 2023.
Nicole Neri | The Washington Post | Getty Images
A “highly impactful” winter storm is expected to deliver a punch to the country’s midsection on Monday and into Tuesday, with blizzard conditions dumping as much as a foot or more of snow and shutting down schools and highways in several Midwest states.
Snow as deep as 8 to 12 inches (20 to 30 centimeters) could blanket a broad area stretching from southeastern Colorado all the way to the upper peninsula of Michigan, including western Kansas, eastern Nebraska, large parts of Iowa, northern Missouri and northwestern Illinois, said Bob Oravec, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.
“So a very, very highly impactful event coming forward,” Oravec said.
There were widespread school closures across Nebraska and Kansas on Monday ahead of the storm, where forecasters predicted 5 to 8 inches (12 to 20 centimeters) of snow. The district that includes Nebraska’s capital, Lincoln, told students to stay home. Lines were long Sunday at a Target Store drive-up in Omaha as residents stocked up on milk, bread and booze ahead of the storm.
Whiteout conditions in central Nebraska closed a long stretch of Interstate 80. Kansas closed Interstate 70 from the central city of Russell all the way to the Colorado border due to dangerous travel conditions, as well as many secondary roads in northwestern Kansas. Several vehicles slid off I-70 in northeastern Kansas.
Federal courts in Omaha and Lincoln closed at noon Monday. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began increasing the flow through a Missouri River dam that sits on the Nebraska-South Dakota border near Yankton by 2,000 cubic feet per second to reduce the chance of ice jams forming.
The National Weather Service office in Des Moines, Iowa, warned of the potential for “widespread heavy, possibly extreme, snowfall,” with up to 9 to 15 inches (23 to 38 centimeters), and warned that commuters on Monday evening and Tuesday morning would face “significant impacts,” with possible whiteout conditions at times. Dubuque, on Iowa’s eastern border with Illinois, closed its city offices Tuesday. Schools in Cedar Rapids in eastern Iowa were among those closing Tuesday.
The threatening weather has already affected campaigning for Iowa’s Jan. 15 precinct caucuses, where the snow is expected to be followed by frigid temperatures that could drift below zero degrees (minus 18 Celsius) by caucus day next week. It forced former President Donald Trump’s campaign to cancel multiple appearances by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders and her father, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who had been scheduled to court Iowa voters on Trump’s behalf Monday.
New York’s governor is warning that heavy rains and high winds on Tuesday could lead to major power outages throughout the state and flash flooding, especially in the Hudson Valley.
The storm follows a separate storm that has moved offshore after dumping over a foot of snow Sunday on parts of Pennsylvania, New York state and portions of New England, Oravec said.
And another storm is on the way that will affect the Pacific Northwest into the northern Rockies, he said. Blizzard warnings were out for much of the Cascade and Olympic ranges in Washington and Oregon.
