It’s Winter’s Coldest Day in Much of Eastern U.S.

Temperatures fell to a numbing 45 degrees below zero Saturday in northern Minnesota, freezing temperatures were reported in Florida and homeless people jammed shelters on what was the coldest day of the season for much of the eastern United States.

Winter storm watches were posted for parts of Georgia and the Carolinas as a new snowstorm was expected, following the path taken last week by the big storm blamed for 37 deaths from Alabama to New England.

Gusty wind made it feel like 30 to 50 below zero from the Great Lakes to the central Appalachians, and wind-chill factors between zero and 20 below were common across the Northeast.

Homeless Woman Dies

One homeless woman was found dead Saturday in a parking lot in downtown Baltimore, where the National Weather Service thermometer broke, but the low was reported at 10 to 12 degrees.

The weather service reported that the coldest official reading Saturday in the 48 contiguous states was 45 below zero at Warroad, Minn., on Lake of the Woods near the Canadian border.

Embarrass, Minn., a town of 1,148 people about 60 miles north of Duluth, had a low of 42 below zero, but lifelong resident Adolph Johnson called that normal and said people were prepared.

“We just take everything in stride. We’re nice, hardy people here,” said Johnson, 56. “We’ve done this all our lives.”

Elsewhere, lows included 16 below at Marquette, Mich.; 4 below at Chicago; 10 below at Decatur and Springfield, Ill.; 6 below at Toledo, Ohio; 13 below at Lafayette, Ind.; zero at Pittsburgh; 27 at Jacksonville, Fla.; 24 at Tallahassee and 25 at Huntsville, Ala.

Record Low in Carolina

Asheville, N.C., had a record low of 7 degrees and Beckley, W.Va., had a record low of 5.

Florida citrus growers reported no apparent damage from a light overnight freeze, said Ernie Neff of Florida Citrus Mutual, a growers’ association.

The weather service posted avalanche warnings for New Hampshire’s Presidential Range, where the low atop Mt. Washington, tallest in the Northeast at 6,288 feet, was 23 below zero with winds averaging 60 m.p.h.

State police at Buffalo, N.Y., said 63 miles of the New York State Thruway were closed for more than 10 hours until midafternoon because of poor visibility in blowing snow.

Philadelphia International Airport continued reporting long delays for flights Saturday with only one of three runways cleared of Thursday’s 10 to 15 inches of snow.

Snow Emergency

A snow emergency remained in effect in Philadelphia, allowing people to receive emergency fuel assistance. About 900 families called for help, the mayor’s office said.

“We’ll accept as many people as will come in this weekend. We’re turning no one away,” said Picolla Moore, a volunteer at a Salvation Army shelter in Baltimore. Extra cots were set up in the dining room and lounge areas.

The Pine Street Inn, a private shelter in Boston, offered space to 600 people, four times its 150-bed capacity, a spokesman said.

Most roads were cleared of the snow left by last week’s storm, but in North and South Carolina about 4,300 customers remained without electricity Saturday, utility officials said.