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from the chicago tribune, and hour from me they got 2 feet nothing here just cold air. It all depends how the winds blow over Lake Michigan.

Old man winter blasts region
City freezes; Indiana gets clobbered

By Glenn Jeffers
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 20, 2004

Lake Michigan and cold Canadian winds merged into a two-headed monster Sunday, dropping temperatures in the Chicago area to their lowest this season and blasting parts of Indiana and Michigan with up to 22 inches of snow.

The lake-effect snowstorm hit LaPorte County, Ind., the hardest, forcing officials to declare a state of emergency and state police to close all lanes of Interstate Highway 94 around Michigan City, 60 miles east of Chicago, because the plows could not keep up with the snowfall, police said. State workers and National Guardsmen were deployed to help stranded highway travelers.

County officials pulled the plows off the roads because of whiteout conditions Sunday afternoon. The plows were back on the roads by Sunday evening, once the heavy snowfall subsided, LaPorte County Commissioner Bill Hager said. State police did not reopen I-94 until after 9:30 p.m.

"Michigan City is just devastated," Hager said. "I heard on WGN [radio] that we could probably get a foot of snow, but I don't think anyone was expecting 2 feet."

Meanwhile in the Chicago area, temperatures plunged early Sunday, hitting a low of 4 degrees at 8:13 a.m. at O'Hare International Airport, with winds making it feel like 18 below zero, according to meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Romeoville. Sunday's high was 18 degrees, but that was shortly after midnight Saturday. Daytime temperatures never got above 12 at O'Hare.

The cold weather may have contributed to the death of an unidentified man who started a fire to keep warm in a vacant house late Saturday on the Far South Side, Chicago police said. The fire spread throughout the two-story house.

The man, believed to be in his 30s or 40s, was taken to Roseland Community Hospital, where he later died of smoke inhalation, authorities said.

But with just a small shift in direction, the Chicago area could have caught the brunt of the storm, meteorologist Bill Nelson said. Strong northerly winds from a cold front last week headed south down the full length of Lake Michigan, grabbing moisture from the warmer water.

That produced narrow, intense bands of lake-effect snow over "snow belt" regions that border the lake, Nelson said.

"The winds are out of the north, which is why portions of Indiana and Michigan are getting the snow [Sunday] whereas the rest of us are enjoying sunny skies," Nelson said. "In the case of a northeast wind, then the Illinois side would get a lake-effect snow."

The storm hit the southeast basin of Lake Michigan with an average rate of 1 to 2 inches of snow per hour. The storm stretched over parts of Lake, LaPorte and Jasper Counties in Indiana and Berrien County in Michigan and as far south as the Kankakee River near Dunns Bridge, Ind., meteorologists said.

Though Nelson said towns in lake-effect snow belts are equipped to handle some storms, residents in Indiana were shocked to find 15 inches of snow on the ground by noon.

John "Sean" Hayes, 63, had shoveled 12 inches of snow off the driveway of his Long Beach, Ind., home before he and his wife left for church.

After church and a meal in New Buffalo, Mich., Hayes came back home and found more snow blocking the street.

"I had to drop my wife off and drive into the snow," said Hayes, who is also the vacation town's board president. "I didn't want to leave [the car] on the street. It would get plowed over."

By noon, LaPorte County had declared a state of emergency. All county offices and courthouses will be closed Monday, said Hager, who asked that people stay off the roads.

Stranded travelers made their way off the highway and into local hotels to escape the the storm.

Roxanne Adney, an assistant manager at the Holiday Inn in Michigan City, said the lobby was filled with weary travelers through the afternoon.

"We have a line that's out the door," said Adney, 25.

By Sunday evening, the Holiday Inn Express in New Buffalo, about 10 miles northeast of Michigan City, was nearly filled to capacity, said Josh Lowmaster, a front-desk clerk.

Lowmaster, 20, recalled seeing snow fall as he finished his shift at the hotel the night before, but he didn't think the storm would continue through Sunday.

"It's actually gotten worse," he said.

The storm caused a number of accidents, though none were serious, Indiana State Police Sgt. Isaac Ortiz said. But calls bombarded the state police's Lowell District headquarters all day.

"I've got [the switchboard] lit up like a Christmas tree. I can't keep up with [the calls]," Ortiz said. "The troopers are running from call to call."

Near Pinola, Ind., southeast of Michigan City, the wheels of an Amtrak passenger car headed to Chicago came off the track around 8:20 a.m. Sunday, company spokeswoman Marcie Golgoski said.

No one was injured, Golgoski said. Part of the train continued on to Chicago, while other passengers were taken to another train, she said.

Golgoski could not say whether the weather played a role in the accident.

Though Chicago-area residents were spared the snow, many like Bob Malenius, 52, were not expecting such cold temperatures.

Malenius left his Wheaton home to walk his dog Sunday morning wearing a sweatshirt. The walk lasted five minutes.

"We went back into the house," Malenius said. "I don't think he liked the cold either."

Meteorologists expected that temperatures would warm up slowly in the region, reaching the low 30s by Monday afternoon. Until then, Hager said those in Indiana would have to wait out the storm before they could get back to their holiday activities.

"We're just going to wait and dig," Hager said. "We'll sell some of this stuff to you if you want."

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"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool."

Jane Wagner