Midwest prepares for Christmas blizzard

MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Midwest was hit by snow, ice and sleet Wednesday with a Christmas blizzard on the way, forecasters said.

Roads, power lines and sidewalks from the Great Lakes to the High Plains were being coated by ice in advance of a powerful winter storm. Up to 20 inches of snow was forecast in parts of the upper Midwest by the time it the storm ends Saturday, Accuweather.com reported.

In Kansas, State Trooper Edna Buttler urged drivers to pack blankets, extra windshield washer fluid and ice scrapers, the Baldwin City Signal reported.

"It's kind of hard to stay on the roads. You've got to go slow," Jason Juhan, a clerk at the Love's truck stop in Goodland. said Wednesday.

Wind-whipped snow was expected in Nebraska, Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma Thursday, spreading northward across the rest of the Plains into Christmas Day.

At Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, nearly 100 employees were put on notice Wednesday as more than 100 pieces of snow removal equipment were prepared for action, the Star Tribune reported. Snow had started to fall in the Twin Cities as darkness fell.

In the South, the same system was generating powerful and damaging thunderstorms.

Accuweater.com said such cities as Houston; Lake Charles, La.; Tyler, Texas; and Hot Springs, Ark.; were being pelted Wednesday. New Orleans, Memphis and Jackson, Miss., could expect the same Thursday.

In Washington, forecasters predicted difficult travel conditions Christmas morning, The Washington Post reported. Forecasters said rain was likely to fall on frozen ground, with temperatures below freezing at ground level and higher up above.

"That's a recipe for ice," Jason Samenow, chief meteorologist for the Capital Weather Gang, said.