CHICAGO — A broad and erratic patchwork of severe weather rumbled across much of the U.S. on Sunday, dumping heavy snow and making roads impassable in the Upper Midwest while damaging high winds swept across the Plains.
Hawaii continued to be affected by severe flooding.
And portions of the mid-South readied for late-day thunderstorms.
Forecasters said the storms would spread eastward by Monday, with mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C., at greatest risk for high winds and tornadoes.
Successive punches of snow, wind and severe weather were set to impact the eastern half of the United States, said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys.
Beyond the threat to lives and property, “whether it’s wind gusts from a squall line, blizzard or snow, or just wind because of the storm, you’re looking at several major airports being impacted,” Roy said.
Heavy snowfall in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan
An area from central Wisconsin to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was likely to see over 2 feet of snow, with higher isolated totals on the peninsula, Roys said. Lower snow accumulations in places su ch as Chicago and Milwaukee will likely create trouble for commuters on Monday, he added.
Over 20 inches of snow fell in some portions of southeastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin as of Sunday afternoon, according to National Weather Service reports. Transportation officials warned of worsening conditions with low visibility and snow-covered roadways.
Wisconsin snowplow driver Aaron Haas said it was one of the worst storms he had seen in years. On Sunday around the town of Marshfield, Haas was stacking piles of snow as high as his truck.
“You can’t see anything when you’re on the highways outside of the city,” he said.
Jim Allen, 45, who lives on the Upper Peninsula, said his family stocked up on necessities and he was ready to clear snow several times Sunday with a shovel and snowblower.
“We’re basically prepared to just kind of hunker down for a few days if we need to,” Allen said.
More than 600 flights were canceled at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport Sunday, according to FlightAware, which tracks flight disruptions. Dozens more through Detroit were also scrapped. O’Hare and Midway international airports in Chicago, where rain and snow was expected overnight into Monday, reported more than 850 cancellations.
Landslides, rescues, collapsed home on Maui
Rain continued falling on Sunday in Hawaii, where acres of farmland and homes have been flooded, roads have been closed and shelters opened. PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide, reported almost 40,000 electric customers in Hawaii without power around midday Sunday.
Flash flooding has been a major problem in recent days in places like Maui, Molokai and the Big Island, where rain had been falling from 1 to 2 inches an hour overnight, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
Some areas of Maui received more than 20 inches of rain, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said in a social media post late Saturday.
“We’re seeing flooding, landslides, sinkholes, debris and downed power lines across the county,” he said. Expressing gratitude in the Hawaiian language, the mayor added, “mahalo for continuing to look out for one another.”
Video footage with Bissen’s post showed washed out or collapsed roads, a car stuck by floodwaters and raging waterways. National Guard members and fire department workers made multiple floodwater rescues, Bissen said.
