Cold, Snow Stretch From Northern Plains to East Coast; Travel Risky

Subzero cold and snow Thursday stretched from the northern Plains to the East Coast, closing schools and making driving hazardous.

About three inches of snow stalled traffic in Washington, D.C., shutting schools and keeping buses off clogged side streets.

“We’ve got 40 to 50 trucks out spreading abrasives on all city streets,” district traffic engineer George Schoene said. “The major streets are down to wet pavement and slush, especially in the major flow directions. But the side streets are slippery.”

Record low temperatures for the date were recorded at Peter Sinks in northern Utah, with 65 below zero; in Flagstaff, Ariz., with 16 below zero; in Cheyenne, Wyo., with 20 below; and in La Crosse, Wis., with 27 below.

The mercury fell to 15 below zero at Denver. It was 42 below at Walden in northwest Colorado and 27 below at Idaho Falls, Ida.

The foul weather closed many public schools and some colleges in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia.

Helicopter crews in Arizona on Thursday began a second day of distributing crucial supplies of food, fuel, medicine and livestock feed to hundreds of persons snowbound on isolated northern Indian reservations.

One of the National Guard helicopters crashed, but all five crew members escaped serious injury, officials said.

A U-shaped mass of arctic air stretched from northeast Ohio, south across Mississippi to New Mexico and northwest to Washington state, said Harry Gordon, a meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City, Mo.

Snow and freezing rain at the edges of the cold front iced roads, and prompted widespread storm and travelers’ advisories. They were posted from eastern New Mexico, across northern Texas and Oklahoma and from southeast Missouri to Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Travelers’ advisories were also issued for snow in southeast New York, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Delaware.

Farmers in Arizona were warned to protect citrus and vegetable crops and stockmen’s advisories to shelter pets and livestock from the cold were issued in Oklahoma and Texas.

“There’s a huge trough of low pressure through the center of the country, and lots of cold air is being drawn down from Canada,” Scott Tansey of the forecast center said.

Snowfall accumulations Thursday included eight inches at Devils Knob, Ark., and five inches in parts of Missouri, the weather service said. In Maryland, where schools closed in 15 counties, four inches fell with more expected overnight.

Meanwhile, much of Alaska has been basking in summer-like temperatures. Thursday’s high in Anchorage was 40 degrees, with rain.

This was the third warmest January in Anchorage since records have been kept, according to the National Weather Service. The average temperature for the month has been 30 degrees, or 17 degrees above normal.

Three times during January temperatures hit record highs, with a top of 49 degrees on Jan. 8.