A winter storm that caused dozens of car crashes on the region's interstates Tuesday is going to intensify this morning before winding down by noon today.
The storm spewed snow nearly nonstop Tuesday across Northwest Indiana, forcing some schools and workplaces to cancel and making area roads seem like slip-and-slides.
More than 80 car crashes had been reported to Indiana State Police by late afternoon on Interstates 80, 94 and 65, a spokesman with the Lowell post said.
Most of the crashes involved vehicles sliding off the road and sustaining minor damage, the spokesman said.
A handful involved minor injures. None resulted in serious injuries, the spokesman said.
The storm left many major roads snow-covered, slick and hazardous, a state police spokeswoman said.
"No one expects to be involved in a collision," spokeswoman Ann Wojas said. "The roads are slick, and drivers need to reduce their speed for existing conditions."
The Indiana Toll Road banned semis with double and triple trailers, as well as steel haulers, until 7 p.m. today due to the heavy snow and high winds accompanying the storm.
The National Weather Service on Tuesday canceled an earlier blizzard watch, but that didn't mean the region was out of the woods yet.
A band of snow that had been making its way across northern Illinois much of Tuesday afternoon dumping additional inches was headed to the Chicago and Northwest Indiana areas late Tuesday, a spokesman for the National Weather Service in Chicago said.
Lake-effect snow was expected to pile on additional inches in parts of Northwest Indiana beginning at about daybreak today.
It seemed likely the band of lake-effect snow would hit near the Porter, LaPorte county line, said meteorologist B.J. Simpson, with the National Weather Service for Northern Indiana.
"There's going to be some pretty intense snowfall," lasting about six hours, Simpson said.
"You could easily pile up 3, 4, 5 inches in a few hours, what it took all day Tuesday to accumulate," Simpson said.
Winds of between 20 and 30 mph will make conditions more hazardous, he said.
Total accumulations of 8 to 14 inches can be expected with up to 1-1/2 feet of snow possible in northeast Porter County.
As of 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Portage had 4.9 inches and Wheatfield had 4.5. Chesterton had 5.5 inches by 4:12 p.m., and Cedar Lake reported 6 inches by 4:42 p.m.
The storm resulted in a handful of minor accidents on city streets in Hammond, but they did not force police to implement their emergency traffic accident reporting plan by late Tuesday, Chief Brian Miller said.
On Tuesday, many local schools announced plans for late starts, early dismissals and closures, and in Lake County officials announced the government center would be closed for the day.
All nonessential Crown Point city employees were sent home early, Assistant Police Chief Jim Janda said.
Many commuters opted to take public transportation and avoid the roads.
Melinda Duffy, of Chesterton, was doing just that. Duffy works on the North Side of Chicago and usually drives in, but had her husband drive her to the station so she could avoid the snowy drive.
"I've driven that before and it's not fun," Duffy said.
When the announcement came that the train would be canceled and others would be late, she opted to call her husband and work from home instead.
Air travel was affected by the snow as well. The Chicago Department of Aviation said more than 600 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport with delays averaging 45 minutes.
Southwest Airlines said it canceled more than 140 flights at Midway Airport through the end of Tuesday and expected to resume service today.
Times staff writers Susan Erler, Jeff Burton, Lauri Harvey Keagle, Deborah Laverty, Bob Kasarda, Jeff Burton and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
