U.S. snowstorms abate after disrupting Thanksgiving travel

Wintry weather temporarily loosened its grip across much of the U.S. just in time for Thanksgiving, after tangling holiday travellers in wind, ice and snow and before more major storms descend Friday.

There were some exceptions to the respite, particularly involving California’s main north-south Highway 5, which was shut down in Southern California early Thursday as heavy snow blanketed the region.

High winds that ripped a wooden sign from scaffolding on Chicago’s Willis Tower and nearly felled the Christmas Tree to close Cleveland’s Public Square on Wednesday were calm enough by Thursday morning to allow the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York to proceed, but with balloons flying at lower levels.

The National Weather Service predicted things could get dicey — if not impassable — for holiday travellers heading home. Forecasters warned against travel Friday night through Saturday night in a stretch of country from northeast Wyoming to northwest South Dakota due to expected blizzard conditions.

The next storm system is expected to drop up to 60 centimetres of additional snow from the Sierra Nevada to the central and northern Rockies as it rolls across a large area of the western and central United States.

In Ohio, crews had restored power to about 90 per cent of those affected by Wednesday power outages caused by high winds. At peak, 42,000 customers in central Ohio and 39,000 in northeast Ohio were without electricity.