Biting Cold Hits Northeast, Keeps Even Skiers Home

The cold wave that stunned the nation's midsection expanded into the Northeast on Wednesday with subzero temperatures and biting wind that kept even some winter sports fans at home.

Exhaust from passing cars rises as a pedestrian prepares to cross a Minneapolis street Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009 during another day of sub-zero temperatures. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

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The wind chill hit 33 below zero during the night at Massena, N.Y., and the National Weather Service predicted actual temperatures nearly that low in parts of the region by Thursday night. The weather service said Flint, Mich., set a record low early Wednesday at 19 degrees below zero.

Forecasters also issued a lake effect snow warning Wednesday night for southwest Michigan, where a foot of snow or more could fall.

Winter-hardened people across northern New England bundled up amid warnings about how fast exposed skin can freeze.

"Anyone who sends their kid out today is out of the running for parent of the year," said Eric Friedman, a spokesman for Mad River Glen ski area in Fayston, Vt. A frostbite caution sign was posted at the ticket office, but few skiers were there to see it because of the 5-below-zero cold, Friedman said.

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Schools from Iowa to North Carolina opened late so kids would not have to be out in the coldest part of the morning. Some schools closed altogether.

"Awful," said University of Dayton student Lauren Weining, who put on two pairs of pants and three sweaters under her coat for a 10-minute walk to her job on the Ohio school's campus. "It's the longest 10 minutes I ever had this year."

Snowy conditions led to at least two fatal highway crashes in Ohio, both on Interstate 75. A truck that slowed to avoid a pile-up slammed into a car, killing the car's 55-year-old driver, said Tipp City patrolman Greg Adkins. Another person was killed in a three-vehicle crash involving a snowplow.

Also on Wednesday, two men died in a 20-vehicle pileup in near-blizzard conditions on the Indiana Toll Road.

A day earlier, a Wisconsin man died of exposure after wandering from his home; relatives said he was prone to sleepwalking. Poor visibility in blowing snow was blamed for a 20-car pileup that killed two people Wednesday in Indiana.