CHICAGO -- A winter storm blanketed much of the central Midwest with snow on Sunday at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, grounding hundreds of flights and forcing the closure of major highways on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
"It's going to be messy," said Todd Kluber, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service who is based in suburban Chicago.
With much of the central Plains and the Great Lakes region under blizzard or winter storm warnings, more than 1,000 flights headed to or from the U.S. had been canceled as of 4:30 p.m. Sunday, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.
Most were supposed to be routed through Chicago or Kansas City, Mo. -- areas forecast to be hit hard by the storm.
Strong winds and snow created blizzard conditions across much of Nebraska and parts of Kansas, Iowa and Missouri. The National Weather Service warned that those conditions would make travel difficult in places.
By midday, the blizzard warning was extended to parts of eastern Illinois near Chicago, where snow was forecast to fall at a rate of about 2 inches per hour.
Other parts of the central Plains and the Great Lakes region were under winter storm warnings, with forecasters predicting a foot or more of snow in some places by the end of the day.
In eastern Nebraska, part of Interstate 80 between Lincoln and Omaha was closed Sunday morning because of multiple accidents after snow blanketed the area. That included semitrailer trucks that jackknifed across the highway. It was re-opened by Sunday afternoon.
In Kansas, Gov. Jeff Colyer issued a state-of-emergency declaration. The action came as a large stretch of Interstate 70, spanning much of the state, was closed between Junction City and WaKeeney.
Separately, a segment of Interstate 29 was shut down in Missouri, near the Iowa border.
As much as a foot of snow was expected in Chicago. Between 4 and 6 inches of snow was expected in the Kansas City area. Forecasters predicted more than a foot of snow was likely in southeast Nebraska, northeast Kansas, northwest Missouri and southwest Iowa.
By this morning, the storm was expected to hit parts of northern Indiana and southern Michigan.
Kluber said the storm was expected to hit the Chicago region sometime Sunday evening. He said rain would give way to heavy snowfall and "near whiteout conditions" that would make for dangerous travel.
A Section on 11/26/2018