Blowing snow and frigid temperatures pound nation

MINNEAPOLIS — The National Weather Service said the wind chill made it feel like minus 58 degrees, but that didn't stop Robert Cameron and Keith Anderson from venturing out.

They left their homes in the far northwestern Minnesota city of Hallock on Tuesday to meet a group of friends for a morning coffee at a service station.

"It's really not so bad," said Cameron, 75.

"It's so beautiful," added Anderson, 66.

Temperatures in the minus double-digits were not uncommon Tuesday as a snow storm followed by a severe cold wave rolled across the upper Midwest and took aim at the East.

Early Wednesday, the cold front swept into New York, sending temperatures falling from the 30s a day before to single digits or below zero. It hit 8 below in Massena, on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York, with the wind chill making it feel like minus 25 degrees.

In Michigan, temperatures Wednesday morning ranged from minus 17 at Ironwood in the western Upper Peninsula to 10 degrees in the southwestern Lower Peninsula and 12 on Beaver Island. Ironwood earlier recorded a temperature of minus 23.

The ice and snow that glazed pavements was blamed for numerous traffic accidents from Minnesota to Indiana on Tuesday, where police said a truck overturned and spilled 43,000 pounds of cheese, closing a busy highway ramp during the night in the Gary area.

The bitter cold snap was responsible for at least one death Tuesday. A 51-year-old man in northern Wisconsin died from exposure after wandering from his Hayward home early Tuesday, authorities said. Deputies followed the tracks of his bare feet in the snow to find him.

The falling temperatures — wind chills made it feel like 50 below zero in the far north of Wisconsin — kept towing and auto repair companies across the state busy, as well as public works crews dealing with frozen pipes and water mains.

"We're working basically 24 hours a day with broken mains," said Dave Goldapp with Milwaukee Public Works, adding that more breaks could be expected as temperatures get colder.

The leading edge of the cold air was expected to strike the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and South by Wednesday and Thursday.

Up to 4 inches of snow was forecast for Chicago and the weather service warned Ohio residents to expect both snow coming down at more than an inch an hour and temperatures to drop to minus 24 degrees.

That would be practically balmy compared to the mercury in North Dakota, where Grand Forks dropped to a record low of 37 below zero Tuesday, lopping six degrees off the old record set in 1979.

Schools were closed because of the cold as far south as Iowa, and authorities in Grand Rapids, Mich., issued an extreme cold weather alert and went out urging the homeless to seek shelter.

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