The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Cleveland

A powerful winter storm blasted large swaths of the Midwest and Northeast with snow and freezing rain on Saturday, grounding flights and stranding vehicles along icy roads.

Nearly a foot of snow fell in some Midwest states, and more than half of the morning flights at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport were canceled or delayed. Ten inches at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport forced the cancellation of about 100 flights, Chicago's Streets and Sanitation Department reported.

"This is the biggest one of the season," said Brian Mitchell, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Cleveland. "We didn't have this kind of snow in the last couple of months." Motorists in Youngstown and Warren, in northeast Ohio, slowed to a crawl to avoid spinouts or wrecks. Road crews were put on 12-hour shifts, and were doing all they could to keep pace with the new snow, said Theresa Pollick, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Transportation.