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Weather Woes Not Over For NW Indiana

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(WBBM/AP) - At long last, the driving situation in northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan is improving. But there's still lots of snow to deal with and even more snow coming Tuesday in some areas.

Major roads are back in business, but many east-west secondary routes are still closed in LaPorte County and caution is still advised.

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The WBBM AccuWeather forecast calls for another 3 to 6 inches of lake effect snow in northwest Indiana. In the rest of the greater Chicago area, the outlook is for a sunny to partly cloudy, breezy and quite cold day.

The National Weather Service advises total snow accumulations will generally be 10 to 20 inches over LaPorte County, Ind. and southwest Berrien County, Mich. with locally higher amounts of 25 to 30 inches in LaPorte County.

Traveling conditions across portions of the region will remain very difficult Tuesday with some roads remaining impassable and closed, according to the weather service.

In LaPorte County, the sheriff's office says a state of emergency is still in effect and all east-west roads in LaPorte County remain closed because of high snow drifts and or slick conditions.

The state of emergency has been canceled for neighboring Porter County. Roads in the Portage area are said to be snow-covered but passable.

A lake effect snow advisory for snow and blowing snow is in effect until 1 p.m. ET /noon CT for LaPorte and Berrien Counties. A winter storm warning is canceled.

While the Chicago area is not dealing with major snow, it's plenty cold.

CBS 2's Megan Glaros says as of the 5 a.m. hour, the temperature at O'Hare International Airport stood at a mere 6 degrees. The temperature was 8 at Midway, 4 in Waukegan, 0 in DeKalb and Aurora, and -1 in the LaSalle County community of Peru.

But the wind chills are making conditions far more miserable. At O'Hare as of 5:15 a.m., the wind chill was making it feel as if it were -6 degrees. In downstate Peru, the wind chill was -11, in Aurora -14.

In Michigan, the punishing wintery storm stretching across the state's Lower Peninsula was responsible for the deaths of at least eight people. In Kalamazoo County, a 2-year-old girl was killed in a crash that caused her mother to miscarry.

In Indiana, authorities say the last of the motorists stranded on snowbound highways has been rescued.

Some drivers were trapped in their cars overnight.

State police at the Lowell district office in northwestern Indiana say they handled 90 crashes and 70 slide-offs since Sunday midnight.

A LaPorte County emergency dispatcher says the last of the stranded drivers were rescued by Monday evening.

State highway department spokesman Jim Pinkerton says crews using front-end loaders Monday removed drifts on U.S. 30 in Porter and LaPorte counties

Many east-west roads in northwestern Indiana were impassable from what police said were drifts up to 6 feet high with wind gusts reaching 30 miles per hour.

(TM and © Copyright 2010 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS Radio and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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