A pre-winter ice storm has claimed the life of a 16-year-old Washtenaw County high school student.

Sheriff's Commander Dave Egeler says Tyler Steffie was a back seat passenger in a car with two other Dexter High School students when the car skidded on the road and struck a tree Tuesday. The others had minor injuries.

Freezing rain was falling about the time of the 11 a.m. crash in Lima Township, about 45 miles west of Detroit. Egeler tells The Ann Arbor News that the car hit a patch of slush and ice.

About a dozen deaths have been blamed on the storm that began over the weekend and swept through Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri on the way to the Midwest.