Frigid storms and fierce winds give a ‘vicious slap in the face’ to much of the nation

Avalanche danger forced officials to close Interstate 90 Tuesday at Snoqualmie Pass, Washington state’s main east-west artery across the Cascade Mountains. The pass was to remain closed until Wednesday morning. More than 200 trucks were backed up at North Bend, waiting to move freight. On a typical weekday, as many as 7,000 trucks travel I-90 over the pass.

By CARYN ROUSSEAU
The Associated Press

1/30/2008

CHICAGO — Severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and fierce winds sliced through the Midwest, leaving behind bitterly cold air and blizzards in the northern Plains that sent temperatures in some areas plummeting by 50 degrees in a few hours.

Forecasters warned more bad weather was on the way Wednesday.

“This is going to be a hard, vicious slap in the face from Mother Nature,” Gino Izzi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville, Ill., said Tuesday night. “The temperature drop we saw was really spectacular in a bad way.”

High winds associated with thunderstorms may have killed two people in Indiana, authorities said Tuesday. Snow forced the closure of schools and highways in many areas, and avalanche warnings were issued for some Western regions.

In northwest Ohio, high winds flipped a semi with an empty trailer onto its side on Interstate 75 near Findlay, blocking the southbound lanes for three hours after midnight, the State Highway Patrol said. The driver suffered minor injuries.

“I wouldn’t call it a common occurrence to see winds this strong with this kind of snow,” Izzi said. “This isn’t something we see every year.”

The cold air and wind gusts as high as 70 mph slammed into the Midwest, where fog created problems for air travel Tuesday in Chicago. About 350 flights were canceled Tuesday at O’Hare International Airport, said Chicago Department of Aviation spokesman Karen Pride.

The system also dragged frigid air across the northern Plains. The Weather Service reported a midday temperature of minus-24 degrees at Glasgow, Mont. North Dakota registered wind chill factors of minus-54 degrees at Garrison, while Williston hit a low of minus-24 degrees.

Most of Minnesota was under wind chill warnings until noon Wednesday due to indexes that fell into the minus-30 degree level. It was as low as 50 degrees below freezing in Hibbing.

“It’s a little worse than your average snowstorm,” said Rod Donovan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Des Moines, Iowa. “The biggest impact is that the driving conditions can change quickly with this type of storm. Once it begins, travel is quite hazardous.”

In Cape Girardeau County, Mo., winds as strong as 70 mph and dime-size hail were reported Tuesday. Two unconfirmed funnel clouds were reported, said Dick Knaup, the county’s emergency management director.

The week began with heavy snow pummeling mountain areas from Washington state to northern Arizona as two storms converged, one from hard-hit California and another from the Gulf of Alaska, meteorologists said.

The storms were followed Tuesday by a third that threatened to leave up to 20 inches of snow in Idaho’s mountains, said Jay Breidenbach of the Weather Service office in Boise, Idaho.

A fourth storm was on the way to the interior West: “By Thursday, the next storm will be right on our doorstep. This is quite a storm system,” Breidenbach said.

Interstate 90, the state's main east-west link across the Cascade Range, was closed about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday through 3,011-foot Snoqualmie Pass after a slide blocked the eastbound lanes.

Since then, workers have detonated about 500 pounds of explosives to bring down more loose snow and removed about 130,000 dump truck loads of snow and debris from the freeway, state Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond said before daybreak Wednesday.

Wet, heavy snow falling on a hard icy layer has created treacherous conditions, Hammond said.

“We're working very hard to get this facility open so we can get our commerce moving again,” Hammond said. “We're hoping late morning or early afternoon if things hold up.”

More than 200 trucks were backed up at North Bend, waiting to move freight across the pass. On a typical weekday, as many as 7,000 trucks travel I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass, she added.

Avalanche control workers spent 18 hours at Snoqualmie Pass before getting a brief respite Tuesday night, then returned at 3 a.m. Wednesday, officials said.

The National Weather Service offered little hope of respite, predicting another 1 to 2 feet of new snow in the Cascades by midday Thursday with the heaviest snowfall Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Snow also closed highways in Minnesota, Colorado and Wyoming.

The threat of flooding as heavy snow melted brought an emergency declaration on the Navajo reservation sprawling across parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

Associated Press writers P. Solomon Banda in Denver; Sophia Tareen and Michael Tarm in Chicago; Henry C. Jackson in Des Moines, Iowa; Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho; and Arthur H. Rotstein in Tucson, Ariz., contributed to this report.