Midwest blanketed by snow, ice

DES MOINES, Iowa – Snow and ice plastered a wide area of the Midwest on Saturday, interrupting campaigning by presidential hopefuls, disrupting airport and highway traffic and killing at least two people.

The National Weather Service posted winter storm and ice warnings across parts of Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, the eastern Dakotas, Illinois and northern Michigan, although some warnings were lifted by midday. Six to 16 inches of snow was forecast in parts of Minnesota.

Much of Iowa was hit by snow, sleet and freezing rain.

Hundreds of flights were canceled at airports in Des Moines, Chicago and Milwaukee. Officials decided to close Des Moines International Airport for several hours after a United Airlines plane slid off a taxiway as it was heading to a runway for a flight to Chicago’s O’Hare. Airport spokesman Roy Criss said none of the 44 passengers was injured and the airport reopened by midafternoon.

At Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wis., an incoming Mesa Airlines regional jet flying for United Express slid off the pavement after failing to make a turn onto a taxiway, but no injuries were reported among the 25 passengers, said United Airlines spokesman Jeff Vick.

Madison was expecting 3 inches of snow and overnight wind gusts to 30 mph, an outlook so bleak that even meteorologists were postponing their own events. The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences department postponed its annual Solstice Party, which was set for Saturday, until February.

The storm also complicated plans for some presidential hopefuls drumming up support for the Jan. 3 caucuses that kick off the nomination process.

Republican Mitt Romney canceled three campaign stops planned Saturday in southern Iowa, and former President Clinton canceled a rally for his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, scheduled Saturday afternoon outside Des Moines.