http://www.timesunion.com/news/us/article/White-Christmas-on-its-way-for-Northeast-Great-12453415.php
Christmas brings Northeast blizzard, bitter cold in Midwest
Updated 10:23 pm, Monday, December 25, 2017
Santa Claus is coming to town, darting from chimney to chimney, country to country and continent to continent, delivering gifts while consuming copius amounts of port and mincepies. But if your not sure if you've been naughty or nice - how will you know if he's heading to your house? It's almost become a festive tradition. Each year on Christmas Eve, a crack team from the North American Aerospace Defense Command who are normally responsible for monitoring any aerospace or marine threats, have another important mission -tracking Santa as he makes his sleigh journey across the world. Travelling an estimated 510,000,000 kilometers over the course of one night and moving at a speed of 10,703,437.5km/hr - almost 3000 km per second - that means some very tired reindeer. NORAD keep up with Santa's swift pace using the multi-billion dollar assets at their disposal - satellites; fighter jets; Santa cams and an infrared sensor to detect heat from Rudolph's nose. The US agency doesn't just track Father Christmas either. Now they publish his whereabouts online on the interactive NORAD Santa tracker , and you can watch videos of him arriving at key locations as well as play games and read all about Santa's sleigh, his route and the reindeer that help him. It also has its own Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts. According to the tracker, Santa will call in on 390,000 homes every minute and if he stops for a mince pie at each one, he will have consumed around 71,764,000,000 in one night. The yearly tradition of tracking Santa's exact whereabouts during Christmas Eve dates back to 1955 when a local ad to speak directly with Santa printed the wrong phone number, instead directing children to a military defense operations center. They loved the idea, and have carried it on ever since. Now, every year, thousands of volunteers staff telephones and computers on Christmas Eve to take around 70,000 phone from over 220 countries. Children ask questions such as, when Santa is expected in their town, and is he lactose intolerant? Before departing on his his globe-trotting Christmas trip , Santa shared a festive message from a snow-covered Finnish Lapland to people around the world: "I repeat my wish from year to year: Do everyone else the same things that you would like them to do to you and I am sure that the world will be a much, much better place."
Media: EuronewsCHICAGO (AP) — The good news for many in the Northeast and Midwest was that it has been a white Christmas. The bad news was that a blizzard swept into parts of New England and bitter cold enveloped much of the Midwest.
Even the usually rainy Pacific Northwest got the white stuff. The National Weather Service says it's only the sixth time since 1884 that downtown Portland had measurable snow — only an inch or two — on a Dec. 25.
A blizzard warning was issued Monday for portions of Maine and New Hampshire, with forecasters saying snow of up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) and wind gusts up to 50 mph (80 kph) could make travel "dangerous to impossible."
Most businesses were already shuttered on Christmas Day in New England. One of the few open was The Tobacconist cigar shop in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, where area-resident Dwayne Doherty said he welcomed the fresh blanket of snow.
"I'm actually happy," he said, chuckling as he made his way to his pick-up. "We haven't had snow on Christmas at all in the last few years. It's actually perfect."
States from Montana and the Dakotas to Wisconsin expected wind chill temperatures in places at 40 below zero (40 below Celsius), the National Weather Service said. The upper half of Iowa and northern Illinois also braced for subzero temperatures.
Minnesota was experiencing its most frigid Christmas Day since 1996, with wind chills as cold as 35 degrees below zero, KSTP-TV reported. The National Weather Service warned that those whose skin was exposed in such conditions could get frostbite in as little as 15 minutes.
Snow amounts in the Midwest were not large for this time of year. A storm system that swept from Nebraska through Iowa dropped around 2 inches of snow on Chicago, the weather service said.
That was just enough to provide a picturesque backdrop for those gathering for Christmas dinners in the Chicago area. But it wasn't enough to cause havoc either on roadway or airport runaways.
Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was reporting just six cancelations and average delays of only 15 minutes around noon Monday. There were no cancellations at the city's other major airport, Midway, and delays were less than 15 minutes on average.
The nation's third largest city had comparatively little snow for the season until the weekend — just over 2 inches (5 centimeters) in all, the National Weather Service said.
The city of Milwaukee had 103 salt trucks treating slick spots Monday, according to WITI-TV. The trucks were using treated salt that's deployed when temperatures drop below 15 degrees.
In addition to slowing travel in New England, the storm was responsible for some power outages. Eversource reported more than 20,000 customers in eastern Massachusetts without electricity, the bulk on Cape Cod which was feeling the brunt of strong winds.
Most of Indiana had been under winter weather advisory with officials urging motorists to stay put unless they absolutely had to travel. Northern Indiana had been expecting up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) with slightly less in the southern part of the state.
New England was expected to get up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow. Strong winds were predicted for Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island with gusts up to 65 mph (105 kph).
Mountain areas in parts of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming received more than 1 foot (30 centimeters) of snow, which started Saturday. It was good news for holiday skiers and resorts which have struggled with a slow start this season.
But it meant a heightened warning of avalanches in higher elevations outside of ski areas.
