MADISON, Wis. — Heavy snow, hail and strong winds on Thursday moved across the Midwest as states farther west began digging out of the spring blizzard that shut down the Denver airport, closed hundreds of miles of roads and left cars stranded along highways on the Great Plains.
The blizzard buried parts of Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin as it crawled east, leaving as much as a foot of snow in some areas and prompting officials to issue travel warnings and cancel school. In Michigan, power was knocked out because of snow, ice and wind from the early spring storm.
“It’s pretty common that we see a couple of big storms in March, … but it is a high amount,” National Weather Service meteorologist Kerry Hanko said.
Several homes were damaged or destroyed, and injuries were reported in Arkansas after storms swept through around midnight Wednesday. A tornado touched down on the southeast side of Lake Charles in Louisiana, damaging a house, the National Weather Service confirmed Thursday.
In Texas, authorities said a hailstorm broke windows, while wind gusts reaching 45 mph accompanied snowfall in South Dakota, according to the weather service.
In Minnesota, the Twin Cities’ southern suburbs got around a foot of snow, and several school districts canceled classes Thursday. Transportation officials in Iowa advised against travel in the northeast portion of the state because roads were covered with snow or blocked by disabled vehicles.
Parts of western Wisconsin saw as much as 13 inches of snow, while the southern third of the state shivered in freezing rain. State emergency management officials reported more than 100 crashes on interstates and state highways but no fatalities. Gov. Scott Walker called members of the National Guard to active duty to help local authorities.
Denver International Airport reopened Wednesday evening. But by then, most of the day’s flights had been canceled, leaving people to sleep on the floor there or return home and come back and wait to try to get on another flight during an already busy spring break travel week.
