More Than 500 Flights Canceled in Chicago

Flight cancellations at Chicago's two airports are growing as the slow-moving storm system dumps snow in northern

Flight-tracking website FlightAware.com showed more than 350 flights in and out of O'Hare International Airport had been canceled as of Saturday afternoon. The airport had received 7 inches by midday Saturday.

Midway International Airport, which is in the southeast part of Chicago, had about 175 departing and arriving flights that had been canceled Saturday afternoon.

In Indianapolis, the city activated its snow plows Saturday afternoon as a line of moderate to heavy snow showers swept across the area, covering rooftops and lawns with about a third of an inch of snow.

Weather Service meteorologist Meagan Bird said Indiana's capital city is expected to get a storm total of 1 to 3 inches of snow.

The southern Wisconsin city of Janesville is digging out after the wintry storm dumped between 10 and 20 inches of snow by Saturday afternoon.

Southside True Value Hardware manager Matt Krienke says the store has sold three snowblowers and more than 50 snow shovels over the last three days.

He says sidewalk salt and tube sand, which adds weight to vehicles to improve traction, have been "going like crazy."

In the northern Indiana city of LaPorte, the storm had dropped about four inches of snow by noon Saturday.

Alizha Demunck, who works at the Little Chocolates candy store, says the snow wasn't slowing shoppers from seeking out handmade chocolates.

She says LaPorte gets heavy snowfalls so frequently that "most people aren't even fazed by it."

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The wintry storm has dumped more than a foot of snow in Chicago's northwestern suburbs, with one site reporting nearly 15 inches.

National Weather Service meteorologist Amy Seeley says Boone and McHenry counties and adjacent areas of Wisconsin had the highest storm totals as of 8 a.m. Saturday, with 14.6 inches reported in Capron, which is about 60 miles northwest of Chicago. Woodstock had 12.5 inches and Roscoe recorded 11.7 inches.

Seeley says it's not often the Chicago area's first snowfall of the season dumps more than six inches of snow.

Chicago's O'Hare International Airport had 5.4 inches as of 6 a.m. Saturday.

Since Friday morning, the storm has left a trail of varying snowfall amounts and some rain from South Dakota to Illinois.

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