Midwest storm makes way to Valley

Staff/wire report

Residents of the Mahoning and Shenango valleys finally can expect some holiday weather before Christmas.

The National Weather Service said the Mahoning Valley and portions of western Pennsylvania may get up to 10 inches of snow by Saturday.

A winter weather advisory is in effect until 1 p.m. Saturday for the Mahoning Valley, and Mercer County has a winter weather warning until 7 p.m. Saturday.

Residents in northern Trumbull County are expected to receive more snow, while accumulation is expected to taper off farther south.

Martin Thompson, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland, said Thursday night that Mahoning County could see 3 to 6 inches of snow by Saturday afternoon.

Thompson said 20 to 30 mph winds could create drifting in the Mahoning Valley, and wind gusts could reach up to 40 mph in parts of Mercer County, creating near-blizzard conditions and hazardous roads, he said.

Temperatures could drop into the upper 20s over the weekend, but all snowfall should subside by Saturday evening, he added.

Mark Koontz, 21 WFMJ-TV meteorologist, said Old Man Winter will make his presence felt today, the official first day of the season.

“These winds are just going to be howling,” he said. “The storm should be right on cue with the first day of winter, while driving conditions will be treacherous, at best, in northern Ohio.”

The cool-off is a result of the first widespread snowstorm of the season, which crawled across the Midwest on Thursday, with white-out conditions stranding holiday travelers and sending drivers sliding over slick roads — including into a fatal 25-vehicle pileup in Iowa.

The storm, which dumped a foot of snow in parts of Iowa and Wisconsin, was part of a system that began in the Rockies earlier in the week before trekking into the Midwest. It was expected to move across the Great Lakes overnight before moving into Canada.

The storm led airlines to cancel about 1,000 flights ahead of the Christmas holiday — relatively few compared with past big storms, though the number was climbing.

On the southern edge of the system, tornadoes destroyed several homes in Arkansas and peeled the roofs from buildings, toppled trucks and blew down oak trees and limbs in Alabama.

In Iowa, drivers were blinded by blowing snow and didn’t see vehicles that had slowed or stopped on Interstate 35 about 60 miles north of Des Moines, state police said. A chain-reaction of crashes involving semi-trailers and passenger cars closed down a section of the highway. Officials said two people were killed and seven injured.

“It’s time to listen to warnings and get off the road,” said Iowa State Patrol Col. David Garrison.

Thomas Shubert, a clerk at a store in Gretna, near Omaha, Neb., said his brother drove him to work in his truck, but some of his neighbors weren’t so fortunate.

“I saw some people in my neighborhood trying to get out. They made it a few feet, and that was about it,” Shubert said.

Along with Thursday’s fatal accident in Iowa, the storm was blamed for road deaths in Nebraska, Kansas and Wisconsin. In southeastern Utah, a woman who tried to walk for help after her car became stuck in snow died Tuesday night.