Cold Wave Sets More Records in East, Midwest

A relentless cold wave that drove the mercury below freezing in Florida numbed much of the nation Sunday, breaking temperature records up to a century old in the East and Midwest and dumping more snow on frozen streets.

The National Weather Service said the biting chill set record lows in cities throughout 10 states as far south as Arkansas, and plunged the mercury below zero in the South, the mid-Atlantic coast, the Midwest and the plains.

“This is the fifth or sixth coldest December on record. Most of the air over the eastern two-thirds of the country has been arriving from Canada and Alaska,” said Anthony Gigi, a weather service meteorologist in New York.

“This is colder than the normal cold of January, and that’s the coldest month of the winter,” Gigi said, adding that Sunday was the 19th consecutive day of below-normal temperatures in his state.

It was 10 below zero Sunday morning in Jonesboro, Ark., tying a 1914 record, and the mercury hit 1 degree in Louisville, Ky., breaking the record for the day of 6, set in 1875.

Frost and freezing temperatures reached into northern Florida, setting no records but providing a good deal of shivering. It was 26 degrees at Tallahassee, 30 at Pensacola and 31 at Gainesville.

Greenbank, W. Va., reached 26 below zero and Burkes Garden, Va., was 19 below.

It was also below zero in Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

Another surge of snow and cold air was forecast for Wyoming Sunday night, plunging temperatures as low as 15 below zero.

The cold also persisted in Honolulu, where the early morning low of 57 degrees tied the record for the date set in 1980.

A snow squall warning was in effect in western New York state, which has gotten 24 inches of snow at Hancock since Friday. Squalls could bring 6 additional inches and make the persistent snowstorm the worst of the 1980s in the area--eclipsing a late February, 1984, system that dumped 29 inches.

Blustery winds and fresh snow in upper New York state frustrated rescue workers searching for a twin-engine airplane that disappeared during a snowstorm with six people aboard, authorities said.

About 20 airplanes and helicopters searched a four-county area of the Catskill Mountains for the Piper Navajo that apparently crashed Friday night, state police Sgt. John Vansteenburg said in Catskill.

Darkness forced rescuers to call off the search until this morning, trooper Robert Carl said.

Snow fell Sunday afternoon in parts of Maine, New York, Tennessee, Michigan, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Washington state.