Early Snow Hits Upper Plains States

One Traffic Death In North Dakota, Some Fender-Benders, And Some Chuckles

(CBS/AP)  North Dakota has its first taste of winter, with enough snow to make the roads icy. Authorities say the conditions led to a number of crashes, killing one man and injured others.

Iowa saw some light snow as a winter storm bore down on the region.

But the season's first snowfall only drew laughs at a nightspot in the heart of Wisconsin's Lake Superior snow belt.

"Oh yeah, it's snowing," Doug Anderson said Wednesday night from the Bear Trap Inn at Saxon in Iron County after a few inches had fallen. "Summer up here is just three weeks of bad sledding."

Anderson, 45, a logger, said the bar and restaurant is about five miles from the shore of Lake Superior, so people are used to big snows.

"We're going to have snow probably right until July," he joked. "I work in the woods, so I don't care."

"We've already got our Kromers on," he said, referring to the woolen Stormy Kromer hats popular in the north, "and we're about ready to get the boots out."

Kris White, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Duluth, Minn., said snow accumulation in the Lake Superior snow belt ranged from nearly 6 inches to barely a trace.

Another 2 to 6 inches was possible later Thursday and Friday before the snow ended, he said.

The snow also forced the postponement of the first round of the North Dakota boys soccer tournament in Fargo on Thursday.

"It's more in the form of flurries. We don't expect too much accumulation," said Bill Barrett, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks.

"It's worse (for drivers on the roads) than if it was 20 below," Barrett said. "When it's 20 below, everything compacts."

The weather service had reports of 2 inches of snow in the Lankin area on Thursday morning, while the Fargo area reported 1.8 inches and Grand Forks 1.3 inches.

Most of the crashes Wednesday happened between 5 a.m., and 8 a.m., said Capt. Kevin Robson, of the Highway Patrol's Grand Forks office.

"The road was wet all through the night and then it was slick," Robson said.

A man driving a sport utility vehicle was killed when he lost control of it on U.S. 2, en route from Emerado to Grand Forks, the patrol said. The vehicle overturned and the man, whose name was not immediately released, was thrown from it and then struck by an oncoming car, the patrol said. Two others in the SUV were treated and released.

There were other accidents with less serious injuries.

"The first couple of snow events and poor road conditions kind of catch people off guard," Robson said. "The general trend of all these conditions is that people were driving faster than they should be on an icy highway."

It was a year ago this month that a major storm hit southwestern North Dakota, dropping up to 2 feet of snow in some areas, knocking out power to thousands of people and sending National Guard soldiers to help rescue stranded drivers.

Only a couple of vehicles went into ditches as a result of the snow, a dispatcher for the Iron County, Wis., Sheriff's Department who declined to give her name said.

In Hurley, Wis., Ron Kern had planned to close his Dairy Queen restaurant for the season Saturday and miss the snow season.

"We didn't quite make it," he said.

Kern said snow in October wasn't unexpected in Hurley, although it was a little out of the ordinary in his experience.

"I've been here 28 years," he said. "It's early by a couple of weeks."