Bitter Cold Breaks Records in 58 Cities

Arctic air gripped much of the nation Saturday and knifed as far south as Mexico, driving temperatures to record lows in at least 58 cities in 17 states, grounding planes and snarling traffic in areas burdened by howling winds and snow as deep as 3 feet.

Blinding windblown snow forced a temporary halt to the aerial search for a private plane carrying three people that disappeared Friday in a snowstorm near the Catskill Mountains about 30 miles south of Albany, N.Y., authorities said.

Cold forced a one-day postponement of a candlelight ceremony scheduled for Saturday evening at Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Md. The wind chill was expected to be 25 to 30 degrees below zero. Organizers planned to light 23,110 candles, one for each soldier killed, wounded or missing after the Civil War’s bloodiest single-day battle.

Snow was falling in parts of the West, Northeast, Southwest and Midwest--including many spots hit by the snow a day or two earlier.

The cold air system sent temperatures plummeting below the freezing mark as far south as Texas, where the Dec. 16 record was broken or tied in 13 cities.

The mercury hit 9 in Abilene, 12 in Ft. Worth, 17 in Austin and San Antonio and 33 in Brownsville, on the Mexican border. At 24 degrees, Corpus Christi recorded its coldest morning since February, 1985.

Subzero readings greeted early risers as far south as North Carolina and Arkansas, where 13 cities and towns set or equaled records for the date.

Subzero record temperatures were reported in Michigan, Nebraska, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa. New records above zero were set in Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee.

No records were set in Illinois for the first time in several days, but whistling winds dropped the minus-11 recorded in several cities to wind chills of nearly 40 below.

Farther south, the wind chill in Kentucky was 10 to 20 below, keeping many roads icy. Lows around Tennessee were mostly in the single digits early Saturday and were generally about 30 degrees below normal.

Wind chill readings reaching 20 below zero sent Philadelphia’s homeless scrambling into overcrowded shelters.

Some parts of Upstate New York had their first heavy snow in two years, ranging up to 11 inches in the southern Adirondacks about 60 miles north of Albany.

Forecasters predicted snowfall of 8 to 12 inches in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine by the time the storm ended.

Civil defense officials reported 30 inches of snow by morning in New Carlisle, Ind., about 8 miles west of South Bend, which was the warmest spot in the state with a reading of 10 degrees above zero.