‘Arctic Blast’ Spreads to Florida, Slows Travelers in Northeast

Temperatures dropped to record lows Monday as far south as Florida, where Tampa registered just 33 degrees, and the cold plus up to 2 feet of fresh snow closed schools and slowed travel in parts of the Northeast.

“We’re looking at an arctic blast here,” said Art Lester of the National Weather Service in Portland, Me.

Authorities in Washington, Boston and Philadelphia stepped up efforts to place homeless people in warm shelters. At least 11 deaths were blamed on the weather during the weekend.

Pre-dawn temperatures at Albany, N.Y., were in the single digits, but 25-m.p.h. wind made it feel like 30 degrees below zero, the National Weather Service said.

“This is our first real arctic air outbreak of the season,” said meteorologist Al Moore of the weather service at Newark, N.J., where it was 15 degrees.

But relief was on the way with a warm front sweeping across the Midwest. At midday, temperatures across Illinois ranged from 32 on the Chicago lake front to 51 at Belleville, near St. Louis.

In the Pacific Northwest, the problem was melting snow and heavy rain that threatened floods and caused mudslides, one of which pushed a van off a busy road east of Seattle.

Temperatures hit record lows all across Florida, including 47 at Miami, 39 at Ft. Myers, 33 at Tampa, 40 at St. Petersburg and 27 at Apalachicola.

Most of Alabama had record lows, including 25 at the Gulf of Mexico port of Mobile. In Mississippi, Jackson and Meridian each hit a record low of 20.

Amtrak reported delays of two hours Monday on trains between New York and Washington because of weather-related problems in a fiber-optic cable that handles switches, said spokeswoman Sue Martin. Temporary repairs were made by afternoon.

Shelters for the homeless were full overnight Sunday in the District of Columbia. Officials said two vans were on the street to provide warm food and drinks to homeless people who couldn’t find shelter. In Philadelphia, a low of 18 brought additional homeless to already crowded shelters, forcing officials to add 125 beds for a total of 2,975.