Cool Air Sets Records in Parts of Northeast : Rain in Farm Belt Areas Gives Scant Drought Relief

Cool Canadian air pushed the mercury down in the Northeast today, setting records for early-morning lows in several cities, but hot, humid weather lingered over the Great Plains as water men in the South worked to restore normalcy to the receding, barge-blocked Mississippi River.

St. Louis officials today blamed heat for the deaths of three elderly women.

The National Weather Service said scattered rainstorms spread across parts of the Farm Belt today but not enough to shower hope on the farmers and cattlemen who need significant amounts of rainfall to prolong life for crops and livestock.

Weather forecasters said the latest 10-day forecast calls for hot and humid weather in the Great Plains for the rest of the month and less than normal rainfall in the Central Plains.

“The storms brought much needed and much welcomed rains (in the) southern parts of Minnesota, southwest Wisconsin and eastern Iowa,” weather service spokesman Dan McCarthy said, but he added that the dousing will do little to change the devastating damage the heat has done to vulnerable crops.

Cold Front Coming

More than 1 3/4 inches of rain fell at Waterloo, Iowa, by early morning, and more than half an inch was measured at Rochester and International Falls, Minn.

McCarthy said a cold front will descend on north-central Michigan, southern Minnesota and into northern Wyoming by late today.

A cool Canadian air mass early today brought record low temperatures to several cities in the Northeast, an area that last week sweltered in record highs.

Allentown, Pa., broke a 1932 low of 51 with a 50-degree reading this morning; a 47-degree mark in Atlantic City, N.J., bettered the 1949 record low of 49 degrees, and Burlington, Vt., recorded 40 degrees, breaking a 1980 low of 41.

By 1 p.m., Boston had cooled to 64 degrees; New York registered 71; Philadelphia, 78; Detroit, 77, and Chicago, 77.

Mississippi to Be Opened

In Memphis, Tenn., the Army and Coast Guard hoped to reopen the Mississippi River later today after three days of dredging that stalled 1,000 barges.

Despite the break in the heat, all was not entirely well in the drying state of Vermont.

In Montpelier, less than 24 hours after Gov. Madeleine M. Kunin issued a water-conservation call, lawn sprinklers were spewing outside her office building.