Biting Cold Hits Northeast, Keeps Even Skiers Home

A couple of ski areas in northern Minnesota closed for the day because of temperatures that reached 38 below zero at International Falls, with the wind chill during the night estimated at 50 below.

A woman huddles against wind-driven snow flurries crossing a downtown Cleveland street Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009. Ohio's ultra-cold wave is expected to continue into Saturday. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

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Homeless shelters were busy.

"We don't want anyone out there," said Kathryn Paquette, homeless outreach specialist of Southern New Hampshire Services in Nashua, N.H., which found rooms at rooming houses, motels and shelters for dozens.

Honda Motor Co. canceled two shifts at three Ohio plants so their roughly 5,000 workers wouldn't have to risk the cold and slippery roads, spokesman Ron Lietzke said.

Maine residents braced for nighttime readings down to 40 below zero. And in the Midwest, Iowans were warned that temperatures could drop as far as 27 below zero during the night, matching a Jan. 15 record set in 1972.

Temperatures on Thursday were expected to range from 10 below zero in the far north to the low teens in southern coastal areas.

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Farther south, morning temperatures were in the 20s from Texas to Georgia, and along the Gulf Coast the weather service reported a low of just 28 at Mobile, Ala.

Even northern Georgia and Kentucky could see single-digit lows by Friday, with zero possible at Lexington, Ky., the weather service warned. Kentucky hasn't been that cold since December 2004.

Farmworkers in Florida, where the service forecast Thursday night lows in the teens to lower 20s, plucked ripened berries early as a precaution. Strawberry growers near Tampa and blueberry growers around Gainesville checked irrigation pumps, ready to spray fruit with water to create a protective ice coating if needed.

But as the Gulf Coast city of Pensacola, Fla., fell to 40 degrees, Brazilian tourist Vitor Rocha wore shorts and sandals for a stroll with a friend.

"We are not disappointed in the weather today, this is something unusual for us," he said.

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Associated Press writers David Tirell-Wysocki in Concord, N.H.; Clarke Canfield in Portland, Maine; Roger Petterson in New York City; Jessica M. Pasko and Richard Richtmyer in Albany, N.Y.; Melissa Nelson in Pensacola Beach, Fla.; James Hannah in Dayton, Ohio; Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Ky., and James MacPherson in Bismarck, N.D., also contributed to this report.