After struggling to ride in the snow, T.J. Thompson pushes his bicycle Saturday along East Third Street in St. Paul, Minn. Wintry weather arrived in St. Paul on Saturday, with nearly 6 inches of snow falling during the day.

Des Moines, Iowa ? Snow and ice plastered a wide area of the Midwest on Saturday, interrupting campaigning by presidential hopefuls, disrupting airport and highway traffic and killing at least three people.

The National Weather Service posted winter storm and ice warnings across parts of Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, the eastern Dakotas, Illinois and northern Michigan, although some warnings were lifted later in the day. In Minnesota, Duluth received nearly 8 inches of snow.

Hundreds of flights were canceled at airports in Des Moines, Chicago and Milwaukee. Officials decided to close Des Moines International Airport for several hours after a United Airlines plane slid off a taxiway as it was heading to a runway for a flight to Chicago’s O’Hare, said airport spokesman Roy Criss. He said none of the 44 passengers was injured and the airport reopened by mid-afternoon.

At Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wis., an incoming Mesa Airlines regional jet flying for United Express slid off the pavement after failing to make a turn onto a taxiway, but no injuries were reported among the 25 passengers, said United Airlines spokesman Jeff Vick.

The storm also complicated plans for some presidential hopefuls drumming up support for the Jan. 3 caucuses that kick off the nomination process.

Republican Mitt Romney canceled three campaign stops planned Saturday in southern Iowa, and former President Clinton canceled a rally for his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, scheduled Saturday afternoon outside Des Moines.

In Indiana, a van carrying Purdue University’s ice hockey team rolled over on an ice-slickened highway about 20 miles southwest of West Lafayette, killing one team member and injuring seven others, school officials said.

A man died when his Jeep hit a semitrailer on a highway north of Madison, Wis., authorities said.

On an interstate near Wellington, Colo., a van slid off the road, rolled and struck a fence. One passenger was thrown from the vehicle and died, while the driver and two other passengers were injured, police said.