Updated at 3:30 p.m. ET: Snow was falling heavily by midafternoon in Chicago as a winter storm spread east, NBCChicago.com reported.

Though no significant delays were reported, airlines at O’Hare Airport canceled more than 300 flights, NBCChicago.com said. At Midway Airport, Southwest Airlines canceled all 70 of its flights scheduled between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Friday.

The Chicago Department of Aviation urged passengers to check airline websites for status updates.

The Milwaukee area was seeing light snow at midday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Original story: Snow is forecast for Chicago, Milwaukee and other Midwestern cities Friday as a winter system travels toward the Northeast, according to The Weather Channel.

NEW YORK — It’s a recipe for mass power outages: up to 15 inches of snow forecast in parts of the Northeast on Saturday — much of it landing on trees that have yet to shed their leaves in fall.

“We’re expecting this very heavy and wet snow, and a lot of it,” Chris Warren, a Weather Channel meteorologist, told NBC News. “And when it lands on the leaves it weighs down the branches, you get the branches snapping, falling on power lines. When it’s all said and done by Sunday millions of people could be in the dark.”

Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina (CNN) — Hurricane Irene had coastal North Carolina and metropolitan New York in its sights late Friday, staying on an unusual track that could bring deadly storm surge, heavy rainfall and misery to millions.

With winds near 100 mph, Irene churned toward an anticipated 7 a.m. landfall between Beaufort and Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

But the storm — which is shutting down hundreds of airline flights, Broadway shows and the New York subway system — won’t be content to curve away from the mainland after striking North Carolina.

Instead, a somewhat weakened Irene will head for the Jersey shore, New York and southern New England, dangerous conditions in tow

Wildfires have consumed more than 4.2 million acres of land across the U.S. so far this year, a number more than double the most recent 10-year average, but there’s still hope that 2011 won’t be a record year — all that winter snow in the Rockies, Sierras and Cascades should keep Western areas green long enough to get through the summer heat.

Planting a garden doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking. But the fear of failure keeps many a gardener-wannabe from spending time and energy on planting backyard crops. Knowing the easy vegetables to grow for your region — in addition to when and where to plant them — is the best way to ensure success.

When planning your crops, try to space out the planting of foods that have a short harvest season. An ideal garden will always have something to put on the table, rather than an abundant period and then a dry spell with nothing growing.

JOPLIN, Mo. — From heroism, to disbelief to shock. Those were some of the stories being told by survivors of the Joplin twister. Below are some of those initial reactions to the tragedy.
‘Felt like the building was breathing’
Rod Pace, Med Flight manager at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, watched the tornado form to the southwest like so many before.

LAKE PROVIDENCE, La. — Army engineers prepared Saturday to slowly open the gates of an emergency spillway along the rising Mississippi River, diverting floodwaters from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, yet inundating homes and farms in parts of Louisiana’s populated Cajun country.

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be in harm’s way when the Morganza spillway is unlocked for the first time in 38 years. Sheriffs and National Guardsmen were warning people in a door-to-door sweep through the area, and shelters were ready to accept up to 4,800 evacuees, Gov. Bobby Jindal said.

(CNN) — Colorado and Oregon have joined several other Western states in reporting trace amounts of radioactive particles that have likely drifted about 5,000 miles from a quake and tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant in Japan, officials say.

But, on a portion of its website dedicated to tracking such radiation, the Environmental Protection Agency noted Wednesday that these and other readings “show typical fluctuation in background radiation levels” and — thus far — “are far below levels of concern.”

(CNN) — If the moon looks a little bit bigger and brighter this weekend, there’s a reason for that. It is.

Saturday’s full moon will be a super “perigee moon” — the biggest in almost 20 years. This celestial event is far rarer than the famed blue moon, which happens once about every two-and-a-half years.

“The last full moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993,” said Geoff Chester with the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington. “I’d say it’s worth a look.”

The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, which has suffered numerous fires, explosions and subsequent radiation leaks since Friday’s earthquake, could get worse, and just how much worse is unknown.

But health and nuclear safety experts agree that even if radiation levels around the plant reach Chernobyl-like levels, Japan’s disaster will not pose a health hazard to the United States.