Cold Snap Expected to End After Record Lows in East

The East’s earliest, coldest weather on record toppled marks for low temperatures in nearly 50 cities from Caribou, Me., to Mobile, Ala., on Friday, but forecasters predicted a break in the cold snap.

“We’re glad to hear that everybody else is freezing because now they’re feeling what’s usual for us,” said Sgt. Art Gorney in Caribou, where Friday’s 4-degree low broke the 1952 record of 13 degrees.

In six Northeast cities, Friday morning’s low readings eclipsed records for the date that stood since 1905 and broke or tied marks in 60 cities in 22 Eastern states, according to the National Weather Service.

Homeless in Shelters

The big chill, which filled shelters for homeless in the Northeast, was obscured by the fact that it was the earliest, coldest day of the winter season in at least a dozen cities.

Those “so cold, so early” cities included Akron, Ohio, (11 degrees); Beckley, W. Va. (8); Flint, Mich. (12); Newark, N.J. (21); Philadelphia (19), and Worcester, Mass. (10).

By early afternoon, temperatures were in the 20s and 30s over much of the Northeast, and the 30s in the mid-Atlantic states, the Carolinas and northern Georgia, said Paul Fike, a forecaster with the Severe Storms Center in Kansas City.

“The good news about that is that . . . temperatures are going to return to levels we’d normally expect at this time of year,” Fike said. “We’re looking at a warming trend.”

Readings Back to 70s

He said readings in the 40s and 50s would return today to southern New England and the mid-Atlantic states, with readings in the 60s and 70s extending from the Carolinas to northern Florida.

Snow fell across parts of the northern Rockies on Friday afternoon and travel advisories were posted for the mountains and passes of western Montana, where 10 inches of snow fell overnight at East Glacier.

In northern New York, where Buffalo’s record 15-degree low Friday broke the 1933 record of 17, nine inches of snow was on the ground in Sherman from the first heavy “lake effect” snow squalls blowing off the Great Lakes.

Track Reopened

In Louisville, Ky., where freezing temperatures forced officials to cancel racing Thursday at Churchill Downs, the track was open again Friday, despite a 15-degree low that was the coldest since 1940’s 18 degrees.

The mercury fell to 13 degrees early Friday at Washington’s Dulles International Airport, breaking the 10-year-old mark of 18.

New York City officials said they housed 9,654 people in shelters Thursday during the season’s first cold-weather alert as the temperature fell to a record low 22 degrees with a wind-chill factor of 5 degrees.

The alert allowed police to offer street people a ride to shelter and Thursday night, police said, six men and one woman accepted the offer.