Snow storm blowing through Wisconsin causing ‘extremely hazardous’ travel conditions

A powerful winter storm is battering Wisconsin, making its way through the north central part of the United States.

The Badger State is under a winter storm warning Friday into Saturday, with the snowstorm to be followed by blistering cold. The National Weather Service says most of the state should see between 7 and 15 inches of snow. Winds across the state are expected to vary between 35 mph to 50 mph.

Several Wisconsin municipalities, including at least the cities of Madison, Green Bay and Oshkosh, declared snow emergencies on Friday.

Marcia Cronce, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Milwaukee/Sullivan office, said Wisconsin is experiencing a “high-impact winter storm” moving up from Missouri across the southern tip of Lake Michigan and then to Lake Huron.

“We’re going to be on the northwest edge of that low pressure track,” she said. “That area is favorable for periods of heavy snow and strong winds with this intense system.”

Cronce said blowing snow is expected to create low visibility in much of the state, making travel “extremely hazardous.”

A blizzard warning has also been issued for the Fox Valley and lakeshore areas of northeast Wisconsin from 3 p.m. on Friday through noon on Saturday.

Cronce said areas under a blizzard warning are likely to experience whiteout conditions on the roads.

Wisconsin State Patrol Sgt. Dan Diedrich said residents should stay off the streets as much as possible during the storm. If individuals must travel, he said they should take it slow, limit distractions, give themselves extra time to get to their destination and provide extra stopping distance.

“The speed limit is probably not appropriate under any circumstances,” Diedrich said. “The biggest thing is just knowing the limitations of the vehicle that you’re driving. Just because you have four-wheel drive doesn’t mean that speed limit is necessarily appropriate.”

Storm leaves many without power 

We Energies reported over 26,000 customers in southeastern Wisconsin were without power as of 3 p.m. Friday.

Alison Trouy, a spokesperson for the utility, said the outages were mainly caused by heavy snow weighing down tree limbs, causing them to come into contact with equipment. Others have been caused by vehicles losing control on slippery roads and slamming into equipment.

She said We Energies has hundreds of crews working to restore power to customers as quickly as possible.

“So far this morning, we’ve already restored power to thousands of people and we’re not going to stop until every last customer has their lights back on,” she said. “It’s challenging conditions for our crew — they can only go as fast as road conditions will allow.”

As the snow begins to slow Saturday, it will be followed by low temperatures, especially for the southern half of the state by Saturday night and then all of Wisconsin by Monday, Cronce said.

“The falling temperatures and the breezy northwest winds are going to give us very cold wind chill temperatures,” she said. “Wind chills are going to dip into the negative 20 to negative 30 degrees below zero, and that is going to be on Saturday night and then Sunday night as well.”