Blinding Snow, Tornado Add to Election Drama

Two storms blew blinding snow across the northern and southwestern Plains on Tuesday, closing some schools and making travel difficult for voters. Rain spread through parts of the South.

A tornado also swept through Alabama. Glenda Hilliard and her sister, Wanda Simms, survived without serious injury when their trailer home in St. Elmo, Ala., was destroyed by the tornado, officials said. Up to 4 inches of rain fell on southwestern Alabama.

A low-pressure area centered over Minnesota produced snow from eastern Montana across the Dakotas into southern Minnesota and parts of Nebraska and Iowa.

Up to a foot of snow drifted through eastern Montana. Election officials loaded ballots onto snowplows to deliver them to the small rural communities of Westby and Dagmar.

The North Dakota Highway Patrol advised no travel in three western counties. Nine inches of snow fell during the morning at Williston, and wind blew at up to 39 mph.

Some South Dakota schools canceled or delayed classes because of near-blizzard conditions.

Election officials in one county arranged for deputies with four-wheel-drive vehicles to pick up ballots from rural precincts at the end of the day.

A second low-pressure system, centered over Texas, spread snow from central New Mexico through the Texas Panhandle into western Oklahoma.

Up to a foot of snow in New Mexico prevented some poll workers from getting to their posts, and two polling precincts had no electricity.

One traffic death was blamed on ice on Interstate 25 near Springer, N.M.

A mixture of rain and snow fell in parts of southern New Mexico and west-central Texas.

Rain showers moved through sections of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

A few light showers also were scattered around the Great Lakes and along the Appalachians, from Pennsylvania to North Carolina.

The Northeast was mostly clear and dry.

Tuesday’s temperatures across the lower 48 states ranged from a morning low of 4 below zero at Butte, Mont., to a midday reading of 86 at Brownsville, Texas.

The lowest wind chill was 33 below zero at Glasgow, Mont.