The idea of snow at Christmastime usually evokes warm and fuzzy feelings: chestnuts roasting, fires crackling, beverages steaming. That is, until the stuff begins to fall — and on Thursday and Friday it fell relentlessly.
A blizzard pounded the Midwest this week, leaving transportation in shambles and even causing a dreadful 30-car-pileup that killed three people in Iowa.
The first major snowstorm of the season, it began in the Rockies before drifting eastward into the Midwest, slamming into a wide swath of the central U.S. including Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan. The blizzard dumped more than a foot of snow in many communities. Madison, Wisconsin, for example, was buried under around 18 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
In Iowa, wintry conditions on I-35 blinded drivers, according to local NBC affiliate WHO TV, causing a chain reaction of crashes that left three people dead and prompting police to warn Iowans to stay off the roads. In Indiana, slick conditions caused a semitrailer to skid out of control and into a concrete barrier, killing the driver. In total, the storm was blamed for deaths in at least five states, the Associated Press reports.
The wintry storm has also caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights, stranding thousands of holiday travelers. Here’s a look at some of the most striking photos from the blizzard that struck the Midwest.
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