Northern States Shiver in New Cold Wave : Montana Temperature Reaches 39 Below; Georgia Gets Snow

A new blast of arctic air sent temperatures plunging as low as 39 degrees below zero in the North on Wednesday while snow moving ahead of the frigid front spread south to Georgia.

In northern Arizona, five National Guard helicopters began flying rescue missions to bring food, fuel and medicine to hundreds of Arizona families stranded by mud and up to two feet of snow on three Indian reservations.

Guard spokesman Maj. Paul Wallace said the helicopters will bring 100 sacks of food, water and supplies for distribution to the estimated 2,000 Indians isolated by impassable clay roads. Gov. Bruce Babbitt proclaimed a state of emergency in four northern counties and made $100,000 in emergency funds available.

In parts of Texas, dense fog reduced visibility to near zero Wednesday, and snow closed schools in Kansas and Georgia. Snow was blamed for a rash of accidents in Salt Lake City, including a 60-car pileup in which 16 persons were injured.

A temperature of 26 degrees below zero Wednesday morning at Casper, Wyo., broke the record for the day of 18 below zero set in 1951. “The outlook is for the North Pole to move over Wyoming tonight and Thursday,” the National Weather Service said.

The warmest temperature recorded in Montana on Wednesday morning was 2 degrees at Libby, and it was 39 below zero near Hysham early in the day, the National Weather Service said.

All unnecessary outside work at the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota was halted Wednesday in compliance with a base policy banning such activity when the wind-chill index reaches 65 below zero, according to a statement from the base.

An arctic air mass stretching from Montana and the Dakotas to Oklahoma drifted to the southeast Wednesday, and wind chills were forecast to fall as low as 60 degrees below zero across South Dakota and from 50 to 80 degrees below in North Dakota.

But the cold front should not be as extensive or severe as the one blamed for at least 176 deaths in the East and Southeast earlier this month, Harry Gordon, a meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City, said Wednesday.

“This deep, low-pressure trough is the same sort of system we had on the East Coast 10 days ago. All that pattern has shifted West,” Denver forecaster Brian Heckman said.

Fog in eastern Texas reduced visibility to near zero at Wichita Falls and along the coast Wednesday morning ahead of a storm threatening to bring chilling cold and up to four inches of snow.

Snow was reported from Colorado east across much of the middle Mississippi Valley. Freezing rain and blowing snow reduced visibility to 75 feet in parts of Oklahoma, but few problems were reported, the state Highway Patrol said.

Schools were closed in four northeast Georgia counties after the second snowfall in the mountains this week. Schools also were closed in scattered areas of Kansas because of windblown snow.