Blizzard halts travel, leaving hundreds stranded across the northern Plains

A major winter storm brought as much as 4 feet of snow and blizzard conditions to the northern Plains this week, leaving thousands without power, hundreds stranded on roadways and at least one injured in Utah after an avalanche.

Nearly 20 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, Utah, an avalanche at Neff's Canyon sent one person to the hospital on Wednesday, KSLNews reported.

"I spoke with a battalion chief briefly. He said they were aware of an avalanche 2.5 miles up the canyon where the burn scar was from the Neff's fire last summer," KSL TV's Jed Boal reported.

According to Boal, the police believe the 35-year-old backcountry skier rescued off the mountain has a broken femur and an injured arm and may have suffered from hypothermia.

Olympus Cove, which is where the skier was located, measured 11.7 inches of snow as of Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

Farther east, in the mountains and higher terrain of Utah, snowfall totals were much higher compared to Salt Lake City. In Alta, Utah, a small town nearly 10,000 feet above sea level located about 10 miles southeast of Neff's Canyon, 47 inches of snow was measured as of Wednesday morning, according to the NWS snowfall reports. Surrounding mountains also recorded snowfall totals ranging from 30 inches to 47 inches.

As the blizzard started to wind down on Thursday morning, impressive snowfall totals were observed across Utah, Nebraska, both South and North Dakota, Minnesota and Michigan. The highest snowfall total from the storm came from Cheyenne Crossing, South Dakota but other snowfall totals were over 2 feet.

In Deadwood, South Dakota, about 30 miles northwest of Rapid City, 36 inches of snow were measured over the past 48 hours. In Finland, Minnesota, which is about 60 miles northeast of Duluth, 29 inches of snow were measured over 48 hours.

In Duluth, Minnesota, the heavy snow bands over the course of three hours resulted in the storm officially becoming a blizzard on Wednesday morning.

"This will go down as a verified BLIZZARD in the record books at the Duluth International Airport," the NWS office in Duluth said on Wednesday as snow and wind blasted the northern Plains.

For a snowstorm to be called a blizzard, there must be blowing snow that reduces visibility to one-quarter of a mile or less, with winds frequently gusting over 35 mph for three consecutive hours. Other weather stations across the Plains observed fierce conditions with windswept snow, but the winds and reduced visibility did not meet official blizzard criteria.

Just before the storm was defined as a blizzard in Duluth, thundersnow was reported early Wednesday morning at the Duluth International Airport.

Thundersnow showing up on AccuWeather's "current conditions" map.

Mollie Johnson, a Duluth resident, was capturing video of her car buried under deep snow on Wednesday morning when a flash of lightning and clap of thunder interrupted her mid-sentence.

"Oh! Maybe I should go in," she says as a loud clap of thunder can be heard in the background. "That was thunder and lightning, but you probably didn't see the lightning ... I don't know how safe it is to be out here in this."

AccuWeather National Reporter Emmy Victor was stationed about 130 miles south of Duluth in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning. Victor didn't experience any thundersnow, but she said the wintry mix that fell in the overnight hours made for a mess on the roadways during the Wednesday morning commute.

"There was a little bit of everything overnight - rain, snow and ice," Victor said in a video update.

Although more than 102 snowplows were working around the clock across Minnesota to clear the snow and put salt on the ice, numerous traffic accidents were reported. Emergency crews responded to at least 17 crashes and 20 additional disabled vehicles that had slid off the road due to the wintry weather, according to a Sergent Jesse Grabow in Clay County, Minnesota.

In a video that Grabow shared, a car that had crashed into a pile of snow could be seen while the winds continued to reduce visibility.

The gate is closed on an on ramp to the eastbound lanes of Interstate 70 at East Airpark Road Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022, in Aurora, Colo. A massive winter storm has closed roads throughout northeast Colorado. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Travel disruptions weren't limited to just Minnesota, either. In South Dakota, the Department of Transportation (SDDOT) said that Interstate 29 remained closed on Thursday due to the weather and that trucks traveling north should consider long-term parking options in the meantime.

The North Dakota Department of Transportation wrote in an update on Thursday morning that the high winds, additional snow accumulation and icy conditions have created challenges and delays in the snow removal process on roadways across the state.

As the wintry weather continued to impact the northern Plains and Midwest, major airports across the northern Plains had numerous canceled or delayed flights. Victor reported that passengers were told to deplane after boarding their flight at the Minneapolis−Saint Paul International airport.

"So now we have to find a hotel, transportation and everything," Leon Franklin, a Michigan resident whose flight was canceled on Wednesday, told Victor.

Combined with the snow, freezing rain left an icy glaze on streets and weighed down powerlines from Michigan to North Dakota. In Watertown, South Dakota, north of Sioux Falls, 0.30 of an inch of freezing rain was reported on Tuesday.

Power outages climbed into the thousands on Thursday morning across the northern Plains. In Minnesota, more than 45,000 customers were without power on Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.US. In Wisconsin, nearly 70,000 customers woke up in the dark, and in Michigan, more than 43,700 people were without power.

The same storm shifted eastward, spreading disruptive wintry weather across the Northeast on Thursday. While dry weather is expected across the northern Plains in the storm's wake, AccuWeather meteorologists say that an extremely cold air mass originating from Siberia will blast the region, plunging it into a deep freeze.

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