The Nation - News from Feb. 6, 1989

Almost the entire nation was in the grip of the “big chill” spawned in Alaska and “it looks like the cold weather is going to hang on for a while,” National Weather Service forecaster Lyle Alexander said. “There is still plenty of cold air coming down.” The cold chased Mardi Gras revelers in New Orleans into warm bars; marching bands at a Winter Carnival parade in St. Paul, Minn., couldn’t put their instruments to their lips, and members of a nudist colony in Texas had to put their clothes on. The cold and snow in the northern plains and Rockies have been a burden for stockmen, who have been unable to get feed to their animals. “The cattle are really having a tough time,” said Clark County Sheriff Craig King in Idaho. “They’re finding them with their jaws frozen shut and their eyes froze shut.” By early afternoon, the temperature reached only 17 degrees in Boston, 16 in Chicago, and 8 in St. Louis.