Joe Wessels / Reuters

Ohio authorities respond to an 87-car crash on Interstate 275 on the outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio on Sunday. Icy road conditions in Ohio resulted in other major car pile-ups in the area.

A 12-year-old girl was killed in an 87-car pile-up on an Ohio highway on Sunday after a burst of snow hit the area. The accident shut down the highway, I-275 near Cincinnati, for seven hours, WCPO.com reported.

As of Wednesday, Chicago has a new weather record: 320 days without at least an inch of snowfall.

That breaks a 72-year-old record set in 1939-1940.

Sunday's dusting pushed the city's snow total to 1.3 inches for the entire season, a rarity for a city that saw its largest snowfall ever just two winters ago.

According to NBC Chicago meteorologist Andy Avalos, Chicago winters usually produce 11.5 inches by this point. That means the city has had a mere 10 percent of typical snow to date.

This mild winter is no stranger to record-busters. The record for most snowless days set in 1994 fell Dec. 10, after Chicago went 281 days without snow accumulation and with unseasonably warm temperatures.

Also on NBCChicago.com: No hand-held cell phones for truckers in Illinois

The record for latest snowfall of at least 1 inch in a calendar year is approaching, as well. The date Jan. 17, 1899, marks the latest arrival of snow in city history.

But what's good for the goose ...
That lack of snow is providing some relief for the city's bean counters and its taxpayers.

"It was in 2011 we used over 260,000 tons of salt. In 2012, we used a little bit over 100,000 tons. And so far, in 2013, we've used about 4,800 tons of salt. So, quite a big difference," said Streets and Sanitation Deputy Commissioner Dominic Salerno.

That translates to a big financial savings. Salerno said a typical year of snow removal runs about $20 million.

... may not be good for the gander
Experts warn that the lack of snow will likely affect the water table later in the season. By this time of the year, Lake Michigan and the Chicago River would typically be frozen over, sealing in water. But that water is evaporating this year.

"The effect of a drought has been a devastating impact on the agricultural economy," said Henry Henderson, the director of the Midwest bureau of the National Resources Defense Council. "These low levels in Lake Michigan could make the river reverse itself now into Lake Michigan, so we would have the problem of sewage going into southern Lake Michigan."

Also on NBCChicago.com: Chicago boat show kicks off Wednesday

The unseasonable warmth isn't affecting just the Chicago area. The Mississippi River is dangerously shallow in places, and that threatens the ability for barges to pass.

Last year, most of Illinois dealt with drought conditions.

Kirk Webb / Lakeside Fire District via AP

In this photo provided by the Lakeside Fire District, two teenagers hang on to a dead tree after the ice on a lake started to crack in Show Low, Ariz., on Wednesday.

It was a daring mistake that two Arizona teens might never forget. On Wednesday, they ventured out onto a frozen lake in Show Low, Ariz. -- then the ice cracked beneath them.

"Luckily, they were right by a standing dead tree," Lakeside Fire District Capt. Dennis Stern told NBC News on Thursday.

For what officials believe was at least two hours, the teens clung onto the tree in the middle of the frozen lake.

Authorities say a third teen was on the bank of Fool Hollow Lake, The Associated Press reported. That individual called their parents, who in turn, contacted authorities, Stern said. After the call came in around 4:45 p.m. local time, the Show Low Fire Department worked with the Lakeside Fire District's ice rescue team to recover the stranded teens.

Related: Strangers rescue sledder who crashed through ice

The temperature was 27 degrees when the call came in, according to Stern, and plummeted to 22 degrees by the time the rescue was completed. Show Low is in eastern Arizona at 6,400 feet elevation.

"It's still early in our winter season," Stern said, noting that the ice in the area is only an inch or two thick.

The teens were treated for mild hypothermia in the hospital, Show Low Fire District Capt. Brent Mix told the AP.

"Their hands and feet got pretty cold," Mix told the AP. "It was dark by the time we got them to shore."

The ages or identities of the teens have not been released.

Related: Hunter, rescuers brave icy lake to save dog

"There is no such thing as 100 percent safe ice!" the Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Office in Wisconsin states in ice safety guidelines on its website.

"Even if ice is a foot thick in one area on a lake, it can be one inch thick just a few yards away," the guidelines warn. "It's impossible to judge the strength of ice by its appearance, thickness, daily temperature, or snow cover alone."

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While not as severe as the two previous days, air travel delays caused by a wintry mix of snow, high winds and heavy rain continued across the country Saturday, while some areas were expecting up to a foot of snow by day's end.

The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings Saturday for parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Ohio on the East Coast and also parts of Northern California and Oregon on the West Coast.

As of 6 p.m. ET Saturday, more than 6,300 flights had been delayed and 144 were canceled, according to the website FlightStats.com.

Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were the most impacted, according to the website’s figures.

On Friday, nearly 900 flights were canceled and 13,500 delayed across the country, FlightStats reported.

Weather.com said the storm was likely to linger over northern New England during the weekend.

“Winds will be the most intense from parts of southern New England and New York to the Mid-Atlantic on Saturday,” it said. “Farther to the west, the Great Lakes snowbelts and Appalachians will continue to see wind-whipped snow on Saturday.”

It warned people in those areas to be prepared for winter driving conditions with “sudden reductions in visibility” due to the weather possible.

On Thursday, two people were killed and seven injured in a 30-vehicle pileup on Interstate 35 in Iowa. Drivers were blinded by blowing snow and didn't see vehicles that had slowed or stopped, causing a chain reaction of crashes, state police said.

Thousands of flights disrupted across US as storm hits Northeast

The storm was also blamed for traffic deaths in three other states: two deaths each in Nebraska and Wisconsin; and one in Kansas.

In Utah, a woman who tried to walk for help after her car became stuck in snow died Tuesday night.

The West Coast was also seeing stormy weather.

The NWS said several inches of rain along with several feet of snow in elevated areas were expected in California and Oregon this weekend.

NBC's Ian Johnston contributed reporting.

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Updated 11:45 p.m ET: Holiday travelers across the country were feeling the effects of the first big storm of the season, with hundreds of flights canceled and thousands delayed Friday — many disrupted by the ripple effects of stormy conditions in the Northeast and Midwest.

The winter storm was moving across the Buffalo, N.Y. region on Friday night, with gusty winds, snow, blowing and drifting snow slowing traffic. The storm was expected to travel across northern Pennsylvania by Saturday afternoon, NBC affiliate WGRZ reported. 

Across the country, nearly 700 flights had been canceled and 9,300 delayed by late Friday afternoon, according to FlightStats.com. The majority were in storm-impacted cities like Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Newark, New York and Philadelphia.

Delays of an hour or more were reported at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and La Guardia Airport in New York.

The combination of low clouds, rain and hing wind gusts disrupted major Northeast airports. Those delays could continue into Saturday, when the tail end of the system is expected to leave a few more inches of snow in Pittsburgh and western New York.

Full storm coverage at Weather.com

At Chicago's O'Hare airport, travelers who spent Thursday night there included Patricia Oliver, who called her attempt to get from California to Waterloo, Iowa, "a nightmare." 

"They keep pushing us and bumping us and booting us back," she told NBCChicago.com. "We slept two nights on the floor."

Airlines on Thursday canceled more than 1,000 flights as the storm dumped up to 20 inches of snow across parts of the Midwest, caused blizzard conditions that led to seven deaths and even spawned a twister in Mobile, Ala., that damaged property.

In Iowa, two people were killed and seven injured Thursday in a 30-vehicle pileup on Interstate 35. Drivers were blinded by blowing snow and didn't see vehicles that had slowed or stopped, causing a chain reaction of crashes, state police said.

The storm was blamed for traffic deaths in three other states: two deaths each in Nebraska and Wisconsin; and one in Kansas.

In Utah, a woman who tried to walk for help after her car became stuck in snow died Tuesday night. 

Power outages caused by the storm continued Friday. More than 320,000 homes and businesses were without power in the eastern half of the U.S. The hardest hit states were Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin.

Outages that started Thursday also remained in Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska and Texas.

Although the storm has become largely a wind and rain event for much of the Northeast, the snow belts around the Great Lakes and Appalachians on Friday are likely to continue to see wind-whipped snow that could top a foot in many areas, Weather.com reported.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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If you like your early Decembers mild and with just a touch of snow, this one's for you: Not only have temperatures been warm in many parts, just 7 percent of the continental U.S. is currently covered with snow — a much smaller footprint than the 32 percent this time last year.

"After last year's exceptionally low seasonal snowfall and record warmth for much of the nation, this year's lack of snowfall, even at this early date in the season, is a bit disconcerting," Tom Niziol, the winter weather expert at weather.com, told NBC News. "Some of that anxiety comes from the fact that much of the nation is already under significant drought conditions, so any lack of precipitation, frozen or unfrozen, contributes to that drought."  

Some Midwest cities known for snow haven't seen any so far this season. Moreover, due to a warm spring, they are closing in on their records for most days without snow. 

Chicago has gone 275 days without measurable snow through Tuesday, weather.com reported. The record, set in 1994, is 280 days. The city's average snow total by Dec. 4 is 2.2 inches. Milwaukee, Wis., and Des Moines, Iowa, are on similar tracks.

Omaha, Neb., on Wednesday tied its no-snow record of 285 days.

Data compiled by the National Weather Service since 2003 show that no other Dec. 5 was in single digits in terms of snow cover — and 2005 was up to 48 percent.

As far as temperatures go, more than 1,600 daily warm temperatures were tied or broken during the week of Nov. 27 to Dec. 3, weather.com noted. 

Wednesday's forecast included temperatures "anywhere from 10 to almost 30 degrees above normal" in some places, NBC News meteorologist Al Roker said on TODAY. Cities in that range include Billings, Mont.; Amarillo, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; Columbia, S.C.; and St. Louis.

On Tuesday, record highs for a Dec. 4 were set in various cities, including: Syracuse, N.Y. (70 degrees); Flint, Mich. (65); Georgetown, Del. (73); and Morgantown, W.Va. (69).

Cold air has been "trapped in Canada and Alaska," weather.com said. But, starting Friday, the Midwest and Plains should turn cooler.

By early next week temperatures will be below freezing and the system could produce "the season's first significant, plowable snow in many locations," weather.com stated.

Chicago, which reached 70 degrees on Monday, might even get snow, but don't expect it on the East Coast.

"Depending on how the storm develops, snow and wind could continue into Monday over the Great Lakes, including Chicago," weather.com noted. "By the time the frontal system gets into the East, rain looks likely to fall in most areas, including the I-95 urban corridor."

In Minnesota, locals looking forward to the first measurable snow this season include the owner of a store that sells snow blowers, NBC affiliate KARE11.com reported.

"Six inches would be great, just anything we can get that people have to get out in the driveway and clear the snowfall," said owner Ed Veits.

Weather.com's Niziol echoed that concern. 

"Even though we are still over two weeks from astronomical winter, many people from the north are looking for some sign of winter," he noted. Even with some Arctic air moving in this weekend "there is nothing that shows a sustained push of very cold air from Canada for an extended period of time. We will just have to wait and see."  

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The western half of the U.S. can expect a warmer-than-average winter, but the eastern half is a big question mark, government forecasters said Thursday. They blamed the murky crystal ball on an "indecisive El Nino" -- the fact that it has not formed even though their models said it would. 

"We really haven't seen that before," Mike Halpert, deputy director of the U.S. Climate Prediction Center, told reporters. "Development abruptly halted last month."

El Ninos have been tracked for 60 years, during which 20 have formed, according to the center, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Experts rely on monitoring El Nino, and its counterpart La Nina, because of their influence on the jet stream and storms across the U.S. An El Nino is a periodic weather cycle that warms part of the Pacific Ocean, thus shifting rainfall and influencing the strength and course of the jet stream.

Why it did not form is a mystery, Halpert said, adding that while an El Nino "could still develop," for now the chances are slim.

If an El Nino does develop, it could mean below-average temperatures across the South, Halpert said.

NOAA

Data also suggest that this winter will push 2012 over the top as the warmest year in the U.S. since recordkeeping began in 1895.

The first nine months of 2012 were the warmest of any year on record in the contiguous United States, and this has been the third-hottest summer on record.

"It is likely that 2012 will be the warmest of the 118-year record for the contiguous United States," Deke Arndt of NOAA's Climatic Data Center told reporters. 

In the winter outlook, the East Coast falls under the "equal chance" category -- it has an equal chance for above-, near-, or below-normal temperatures and precipitation, NOAA said in a statement announcing the outlook.

An exception is Florida, where chances are that all but the Panhandle will be colder than normal.

NOAA

As for the ongoing drought, most of those areas "are unlikely to see much relief," NOAA stated. 

El Nino and La Nina are not the only factors at play, but they are the easiest to forecast several months out since the others are much shorter term.

"El Nino and La Nina can play a key role in winter weather patterns in North America," Weather Channel meteorologist Stu Ostro noted, "but their importance can also be overstated, and in each of the past three winters other factors have overwhelmed their influence."

The biggest influence in those years has been the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation.  A change in the pattern caused it to push the jet stream farther south, bringing more cold air than normal into the northern U.S. from the Arctic.

Skiiers and snowboarders will be among those hoping for more help from the oscillation this year. The ski season did start this month in two places -- a rope tow at Minnesota's Wild Mountain on Oct. 7 and a lift at Colorado's Arapahoe Basin on Wednesday -- but both areas relied on manmade snow.

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A rare early October snowstorm dumped snow across parts of Minnesota and North Dakota, including 14 inches in one Minnesota county, snapping tree lines and cutting power to residents who worked to dig out and clean up on Friday.

Some areas saw record amounts for this early in the season, the National Weather Service said in an advisory. Grand Forks, N.D., was among them -- getting 3.5 inches by Thursday afternoon. The previous Oct. 4 record for the city was 2 inches in 1950.

"For early October, this is definitely a big storm," Jeff Makowski, a weather service meteorologist based in Grand Forks, told Reuters. 

Near-blizzard conditions were blamed for a head-on collision that killed a woman, the Grand Forks Herald reported.

Minnesota's Roseau County saw the most snow by Thursday afternoon -- 14 inches. The county is in the state's northwest corner, near the border with Canada.

Six inches of snow were reported in Karlstad, Minn., where residents had been forced from the city temporarily this week by a wildfire that burned several homes and other structures. 

David Samson / The Forum via AP

Snow falls Thursday in Fargo, N.D., which saw an inch by the afternoon.

Northern Minnesota and North Dakota have seen several years where snow fell in the second half of September, the weather service reported.

The region had seen unusually warm temperatures earlier in the week -- including Monday's high of 80 degrees in Grand Forks.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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During the upcoming 2012-13 winter season, The Weather Channel will name noteworthy winter storms. Our goal is to better communicate the threat and the timing of the significant impacts that accompany these events. The fact is, a storm with a name is easier to follow, which will mean fewer surprises and more preparation.

Hurricanes and tropical storms have been given names since the 1940s. In the late 1800s, tropical systems near Australia were named as well. Weather systems, including winter storms, have been named in Europe since the 1950s. Important dividends have resulted from attaching names to these storms:

• Naming a storm raises awareness.
• Attaching a name makes it much easier to follow a weather system’s progress.
• A storm with a name takes on a personality all its own, which adds to awareness.
• In today’s social media world, a name makes it much easier to reference in communication.
• A named storm is easier to remember and refer to in the future.

Related: Check Out the New Storm Names for the 2012-2013 Season

The question then becomes: “Why aren’t winter storms named?” In fact, in Europe the naming of weather systems has been going on for a long time. Here in the U.S., summer time storms including thunderstorms and tornadoes occur on such a small time and space scale that there would be little benefit and much confusion trying to attach names to them. However, winter weather is different. Winter storms occur on a time and space scale that is similar to tropical systems.

weather.com

In fact, historically many major winter storms have been named during or after the event has occurred. Examples include “The President’s Day Storm” and “Snowmageddon.” Yet, until now, there has been no organized naming system for these storms before they impact population centers.

One of the reasons this may be true is that there is no national center, such as the National Hurricane Center, to coordinate and communicate information on a multi-state scale to cover such big events. The National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s Hydrologic Prediction Center (HPC) does issue discussions and snowfall forecasts on a national scale but it does not fill the same role as the NHC in naming storms. Therefore, it would be a great benefit for a partner in the weather industry to take on the responsibility of developing a new concept.   

This is where a world-class organization such as The Weather Channel will play a significant role. We have the meteorological ability, support and technology to provide the same level of reporting for winter storms that we have done for years with tropical weather systems. 

In addition to providing information about significant winter storms by referring to them by name, the name itself will make communication and information sharing in the constantly expanding world of social media much easier.  As an example, hash tagging a storm based on its name will provide a one-stop shop to exchange all of the latest information on the impending high-impact weather system.

Related: Cantore's Famous "Thunder Snow" Video  |  Recalling Snowtober 2011

There will be many differences from the “tropical model” for naming winter storms. Unlike tropical systems, winter weather takes place at latitudes under extreme energy and forcing from the atmosphere.

Often a weather system that is expected to strike a metropolitan area three days from now has not even completely formed in the atmosphere. Therefore, naming of winter storms will be limited to no more than three days before impact to ensure there is moderate to strong confidence the system will produce significant effects on a populated area. In addition, the impacts from winter systems are not as simple to quantify as tropical systems where a system is named once the winds exceed a certain threshold. 

The process for naming a winter storm will reflect a more complete assessment of several variables that combine to produce disruptive impacts including snowfall, ice, wind and temperature. In addition, the time of day (rush hour vs. overnight) and the day of the week (weekday school and work travel vs. weekends) will be taken into consideration in the process the meteorological team will use to name storms.

This is an ambitious project. However, the benefits will be significant. Naming winter storms will raise the awareness of the public, which will lead to more pro-active efforts to plan ahead, resulting in less impact and inconvenience overall. 

Coordination and information sharing should improve between government organizations as well as the media, leading to less ambiguity and confusion when assessing big storms that affect multiple states. It will even make it easier and more efficient for social media to communicate information regarding the storm resulting in a better informed public. And, on the occasion that different storms are affecting separate parts of the country, naming storms will allow for clearer communications.

Finally, it might even be fun and entertaining and that in itself should breed interest from our viewing public and our digital users. For all of these reasons, the time is right to introduce this concept for the winter season of 2012-13.

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