Blizzard strands travelers with ‘impossible’ conditions across Midwest

A vast winter storm is pummeling the central U.S., dumping record levels of snow, canceling hundreds of flights and coating roads with ice to create “impossible” travel conditions.

Storm warnings and advisories stretch across almost the entire northern part of the U.S., with blizzard warnings in place in Minnesota and the Dakotas, which will get the brunt of the storm on Wednesday. Parts of Iowa and northern Illinois will get sleet and freezing rain, leaving roads treacherous.

“We are looking at the potential for hazardous to impossible travel conditions,” said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “The bottom line is don’t travel unless you absolutely have to.”

More than 1,000 U.S. flights have been canceled so far for Wednesday, according to data from FlightAware. About 43% of the flights at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, a hub for Delta Air Lines Inc., have been scrapped and 11% are canceled at Denver, FlightAware showed.

Minneapolis has received about 5 inches of snow, and is likely to get as much as a foot more through early Thursday, with gusty winds and whiteout conditions. That would put this storm in the top five to ever strike the region, according to Melissa Dye, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Twin Cities office.

“It’s not often we get high snow levels from one big storm,” she said. The record is the Halloween storm of 1991, which dumped more than 28 inches.