Winds, Bitter Cold Put U.S. In Deep Freeze

Midwest Temperatures Drop By As Much As 50 Degrees In A Few Hours

(CBS/AP)  Severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and fierce winds sliced through the Midwest, leaving behind bitterly cold air and blizzards in the northern Plains that sent temperatures in some areas plummeting by 50 degrees in a few hours.

Forecasters warned more bad weather was on the way Wednesday.

"This is going to be a hard, vicious slap in the face from Mother Nature," Gino Izzi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville, Ill., said Tuesday night. "The temperature drop we saw was really spectacular in a bad way."

High winds associated with thunderstorms may have killed two people in Indiana, authorities said Tuesday. Snow forced the closure of schools and highways in many areas, and avalanche warnings were issued for some Western regions.

In both Kentucky and Indiana, powerful 75-mile-per-hour winds blew apart roof tops, toppled power lines, and tossed vehicles, reports CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

"I wouldn't call it a common occurrence to see winds this strong with this kind of snow," Izzi said. "This isn't something we see every year."

The cold air and wind gusts as high as 70 mph slammed into the Midwest, where fog created problems for air travel Tuesday in Chicago. About 350 flights were canceled Tuesday at O'Hare International Airport, said Chicago Department of Aviation spokesman Karen Pride.

In some cities, it seemed to go from almost balmy to bone-chilling in almost a blink of an eye. Minneapolis went from 43 degrees on Monday to 12 below on Tuesday. St. Louis had a record high of 73 degrees only to see the mercury plunge 30 degrees in just two hours Tuesday afternoon, reports Bowers.

In Chicago, it was 49 degrees at 4:00 P.M. before dropping to a frigid zero by about midnight.

The system also dragged frigid air across the northern Plains. The Weather Service reported a midday temperature of minus-24 degrees at Glasgow, Mont. North Dakota registered wind chill factors of minus-54 degrees at Garrison, while Williston hit a low of minus-24 degrees.

Most of Minnesota was under wind chill warnings until noon Wednesday due to indexes that fell into the minus-30 degree level. It was as low as 50 degrees below freezing in Hibbing.

Though only light snow fell in western, central and eastern Iowa on Tuesday, winds snapping as fast as 60 mph caused visibility problems, and temperatures dropped into single digits.

In north central and eastern Iowa, forecasters expected strong winds and blowing snow to continue overnight, and for temperatures to possibly dip to 10 below zero.

"It's a little worse than your average snowstorm," said Rod Donovan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Des Moines, Iowa. "The biggest impact is that the driving conditions can change quickly with this type of storm. Once it begins, travel is quite hazardous."

Some 1,500 workers went home early from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., while critical medical staff were put up in hotels so they could stay close to serve patients. The blustery winds also put flight operations on ice at the Rochester airport.

Firefighters in southwestern Indiana pulled two bodies from a mobile home near Evansville that had been turned on its side by winds in a thunderstorm, WEHT-TV reported.

Residents near Danville, west of Indianapolis, reported funnel clouds, and damage was reported to a home and the Morgan County Courthouse in Martinsville.

The National Weather Service reported an unconfirmed tornado touchdown near Okawville, Ill. A corner of the roof peeled off a high school in Nashville, Ill., but no injuries were reported.

In anticipation of the cold, some central Illinois schools canceled Wednesday classes.

In Cape Girardeau County, Mo., winds as strong as 70 mph and dime-size hail were reported Tuesday. Two unconfirmed funnel clouds were reported, said Dick Knaup, the county's emergency management director.

The week began with heavy snow pummeling mountain areas from Washington state to northern Arizona as two storms converged, one from hard-hit California and another from the Gulf of Alaska, meteorologists said.

The storms were followed Tuesday by a third that threatened to leave up to 20 inches of snow in Idaho's mountains, said Jay Breidenbach of the Weather Service office in Boise, Idaho.

A fourth storm was on the way to the interior West: "By Thursday, the next storm will be right on our doorstep. This is quite a storm system," Breidenbach said.

The Navajo reservation, which sprawls across parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, was under an emergency declaration because of the possibility that melting snow could create flooding.

In the snow farther west, avalanche danger forced officials to close Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie Pass, Washington state's main east-west artery across the Cascade Mountains. The pass was to remain closed until Wednesday morning, Meagan McFadden of the state Department of Transportation said.

More than 200 trucks were backed up at North Bend, waiting to move freight across the pass. On a typical weekday, as many as 7,000 trucks travel I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass, she added.

Snow also closed highways in Minnesota, Colorado and Wyoming.

Two of three snowmobilers lost in the mountains west of Denver were found late Tuesday, said Summit County sheriff's spokeswoman Paulette Horr. The third was still missing.

In Oregon, two snowmobilers were rescued Monday after spending two nights in the Wallowa Mountains, where they were trapped by storms. Authorities said the two were dressed warmly and equipped with survival gear, matches and an avalanche beacon.

The threat of flooding as heavy snow melted brought an emergency declaration on the Navajo reservation sprawling across parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

[sophielhu]

The ice caps are melting and that cold unsalinated water is mixing as it goes south or north from the poles with warmer salty water and that is causing major oceanographic changes in currents, and weather patterns.
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[ubrew12]

runningralph said: "Scientists have been talking about global warming for at least 25 years...I do feel it would be prudent for people to reduce fuel consumption. But all I see is heavy traffic, air conditioners or heaters going, "

Take L.A. (no, really, TAKE it).
L.A. sits next to a natural air-conditioner called the Pacific Ocean. Go deep enough and the ocean sits at a constant 4 C (40F) year around. The ability to air-condition L.A. using cool ocean water exists today and is already practiced in cities like Toronto and Cornell university, and SOON Honolulu.

But, lets face it, there''s too much money to be made selling L.A. air conditioners and the fossil fuels to power them...

[herpeslove]

The ice caps are melting and that cold unsalinated water is mixing as it goes south or north from the poles with warmer salty water and that is causing major oceanographic changes in currents, and weather patterns.

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[scottyusa]

Global warming would be happening right now whether we were here or not. It is following a normal climate shift that has happened over and over again in the past. It is nothing new. Many species in the past have gone extinct because of climate changes. Eventually, we will become extinct as well when mother earth has had enough. We should be looking to alternative fuels and lower our emissions but at a normal pace. The problem is the fanatics that think they need to instill fear and it is working. The whole world is about to embark on a tax hike like never seen before. We should be spending our resources on how to adapt and survive this event rather than make such a feeble and costly effort to stop it. That is my word.

[mediapreachr]

Someone quick come up with an idea for more taxes and some quick bucks.I''ll call it "global cooling awareness movement".First of all the price of salt will climb(we need that to spread on the frozen roads);
Quick before other fears will occupy the minds of the citizens.I can guarantee you there are millions to be made.

[denn034]

I hate winter.

[squidly8]

Maybe they could terraform me up a swimming hole in the backyard. I will supply the tire swing for those hot(ter) summer days

[hawksprings]

Nowadays we have 24 hour, instantly and constantly accessable news. So keep that in mind as today you get to read/see/hear instantly about any news or weather event anywhere on the planet.

Back before 1990, in the "olden" days, you maybe read a newspaper, or watched the evening news, or heard news at the top of the hour on the radio, and that was it.

Now it''s wall to wall, non-stop news.

So if it "seems" the weather has gone ''wacky'', part of it is because you hear way more about it than you ever have in your life...

Back before reptile aliens started terraforming the planet.

[mrmazerati]

We keep talking about man-made global warming, but no one is acknowledging the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Yes, I''m talking about alien terraforming. Obviously, we''re being revamped as a habitat for coldblooded reptile monsters from space. We need a documentary and a public awareness campaign immediately. And a website. Got to have a killer website.

[rushlimpdrug]

Posted by hillaryin08 at 02:13 PM

What the helll are you talking about?
The article is about the weather you dumb hillbilly.