Sloppy commute as Midwest gets 1st big snowstorm

[January 13, 2012]  CHICAGO (AP) -- It's finally looking like winter in the Midwest as the season's first big snowstorm crawls across the region, leaving skiers and snow-reliant businesses giddy but greeting morning commuters Friday with a sloppy, slippery drive.

After starting as one of the warmest and brownest winters in recent history, parts of Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri were blanketed in white before the storm moved into Illinois and Michigan. Snowplow drivers were out in force overnight in Chicago, as 6 to 8 inches of snow and plummeting temperatures moved in.

Nearly 15 inches was expected across parts of northern Indiana by midday, and residents in Michigan's Upper Peninsula were bracing for more than a foot before the storm continued its eastward roll through Ohio and into New England.

In a typical year, such a storm would hardly register in the Upper Midwest. But the atmospheric patterns, including the Pacific pattern known as La Nina, that have conspired to make this an unusually icy winter in Alaska have kept it abnormally warm in parts of the lower 48 states used to more snow.

For Steve Longo, a 47-year-old chiropractor from Wauwatosa, Wis., the wait to try out the cross-country skis he got for Christmas was excruciating. He and friend Alex Ng, 56, wasted no time in hitting the trails at the Lapham Peak cross-country ski area, about 25 miles west of Milwaukee.

"I wasn't worried," Longo said. "I was just anxious."

"This is Wisconsin," a confident Ng said. "There's going to be snow."

The storm left 2 to 6 inches of snow on eastern Iowa by Thursday evening, and was expected to drop 3 to 8 inches total on southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois as it moves farther into the Northeast on Friday, according to Richard Castro, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

While the dry weather has been an unexpected boon to many cash-strapped communities, which have saved big by not having to pay for plowing, salting and sanding their streets, it has hurt seasonable businesses that bank on the snow.

"If people don't see it in their yards, they are not likely to come out and ski and snowboard, so this is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful for us," said Kim Engel, owner of Sunburst Ski area in Kewaskum in southeastern Wisconsin, as she watched the snow come down out the window.

Rob Moser, a snowplow driver from Elkhart, Ind., said he couldn't wait for the flakes to start falling. The weather service said lake-effect snow could mean parts of Michigan and northern Indiana could get up to a foot.

"I love it. I make money plowing snow and I'm all about snowmobiling, so I love it," Moser said. "We haven't had enough snow to do much."

The storm was an annoyance for most commuters, and authorities said it caused hundreds of traffic accidents and at least three road deaths -- two in Iowa and one in Missouri. And while some lucky grade-schoolers cheered an unexpected day of sledding, hundreds of would-be air travelers had to scramble to come up with a Plan B.

More than 400 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on Thursday, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation. Across town at Midway International Airport, more than 100 flights were canceled.

In New York state, the storm dumped up to 8 inches of snow on the southern Adirondack Mountains and forced scores of schools to cancel or delay the start of classes. Until Thursday's storm, Albany had received only 6.5 inches of snow this winter, which is about 10 inches less than it normally gets, according to the weather service.

The ice and snow may have caused headaches for travelers, but 44-year-old Mike Norman, of Evanston, said the snow was long overdue. Norman co-founded Chicago Endurance Sports, which offers a Winter Warriors program to help runners stay committed to their training and teach them about the right gear for winter.

But because of the unseasonably warm weather -- temperatures exceeded 50 degrees on Wednesday -- the program hasn't really geared up, he said.

"It's one of my favorite times of year to run. It's clean. It's crisp. It's quiet," Norman said. "It's fun to put footsteps in the fresh snow."

Lisa Taylor, the director of the North American Vasa cross-country ski race near Traverse City, Mich., said the storm, which pushed into the area Thursday night, would help reinforce the thick base of snow on the rolling trails that they needed for races.

"There's been a great feeling of confidence that we'd get some good snow," Taylor said. "Up in the hilly areas where the trails are, there's already more snow than you'd think."

[Associated Press; By CARLA K. JOHNSON]

Associated Press writers Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee; Jim Salter in St. Louis; Chris Carola in Albany, N.Y.; Caryn Rousseau in Chicago; Tom Coyne in South Bend, Ind.; Carrie Schedler in Indianapolis; John Flesher in Traverse City, Mich.; Roger Schneider in Milwaukee; and Melanie Welte in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

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