Northern Nebraska storm continues its eastward journey

HARTINGTON, Neb. -- The winter storm affecting much of northern Nebraska continues to drift east.

By Friday afternoon, communities such as O'Neill and Hartington were fully underneath snowfall. While official numbers have not been tallied yet on the eastern half of the state, the amount of snow was slowly starting to catch up to the western half.

Valentine reported 11 inches of snow, while 9 inches were reported just north of Chadron. Even further north, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, up to 20 inches of snow were reported.

The snow had its effect on businesses in Hartington, though business owners and employees didn't seem to be sweating it.

"Usually in snow storms, people will hear about them in advance, so then they come in a day or two before, so we're generally busy on those days," said Matt Steffen, owner of Steffen Drug. "And then the day of the snow storm, like now, it gets a little slower. From a business standpoint, it's not bad to have a slow afternoon once in a while so we can get some stuff done at the nursing home and in the back."

"Here at the shop, we get more stuff done in time for Christmas," said Whitney Miller, apprentice at Etched Impressions & More. "It just helps slow down the buying of Christmas presents and rushing around."