Chill spawns storm stronger than 1975 Edmund Fitzgerald system

The mammoth autumn storm which walloped Buffalo, N.Y., with a record, lightning-punctuated 22.6” snowfall Friday simultaneously buried sections of Upper Michigan beneath 14-20”. It also generated a heavy, wet cover of snow which downed trees and power lines across Lake Michigan at Hastings, Mich., (not far from Saugatuck). Nearby South Haven clocked winds of 62 m.p.h.
The storm, supercharged by a surge of record-breaking cold air directly from the arctic, attained a hurricane-like central pressure of 28.73” (973 mb) by late Friday—more intense than the deadly Edmund Fitzgerald storm’s lowest reading of 28.87” on Nov. 9-10, 1975.
Thursday’s record early season snowfall and the high winds which raked the Chicago area Friday were the system’s major impact here. Wind chills remained sub-freezing in the city for 40 consecutive hours through noon Friday.
--By Tom Skilling, WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist