While winter's start remains more than a month away, much of Minnesota and Wisconsin were under a winter storm warning Saturday, with some areas seeing almost a foot of snow.As early as 10:30 a.m., 11 inches of snow had fallen in Eden Prairie, innesota, the National Weather Service reported.Other Minnesota communities had seen 10 inches by midday, including New Hope, Amboy, Mankato and Montgomery, while parts of Minneapolis were blanketed by at least nine inches of snow.In some areas, an inch of snow was falling an hour."Even though we get this every single year, for whatever reason, the first snow of the year appears to make everyone forget how to drive in snow," Drew Gordon, of Eagan, Minnesota, told CNN Radio. "So it's always a huge, huge mess."Shortly after 5 p.m., the Minnesota State Patrol reported on its Twitter page that officers had responded to at least 401 crashes on Saturday, 45 of them with injuries. The agency warned drivers that conditions could worsen in the evening, as roads turned icy.The storm also affected air travel, with dozens of flights to and from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport delayed or canceled.
