Temperatures plummeted across the eastern half of the nation yesterday, approaching a record in northern Minnesota and freezing the Gulf Coast as a river of Arctic air pushed southward.
Thermometers registered a low of 54 degrees below zero at Embarrass, Minn.
Don Kozak clears his driveway in North Kingsville, Ohio. Temperatures were below zero in the upper Midwest.
(Bill West -- Ashtabula Star-beacon Via AP)
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"You keep living, but it gets old after awhile," said Christine Mackai, the town clerk for the community of 691 people in northeast Minnesota.
Minnesota's record is 60 below, set on Feb. 2, 1996, in Tower, about 10 miles north of Embarrass.
The cold at Embarrass did not stop regular customers from getting their morning coffee at Four Corners, a cafe and gas station. "Everybody left their cars running," waitress Trish Roggenbuck said. "It was pretty much breathtaking when you walked outside."
While below-zero readings stayed in the upper Midwest, thermometers dropped below freezing all the way to the Gulf of Mexico coast.
The morning low was 28, with wind chills in the upper teens, in Mobile, Ala.; Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss.; and Pensacola, Fla. A hard freeze warning was in effect overnight for parts of Mississippi, the weather service said.
Mackai said Embarrass had been prepared for bitter cold as early as last Thursday. "It only got down to 28 below, and that's nothing. That's no big deal," she said.
Elsewhere in northern Minnesota yesterday, Babbitt chilled to 51 below, and International Falls -- which calls itself the Nation's Icebox -- dropped to 44 below, the National Weather Service said.
An autopsy was planned for today to determine if the weather contributed to the death of a 49-year-old disabled woman found Sunday, at least eight hours after her motorized scooter tipped over in St. Paul, Minn., where the overnight temperature dipped to 9 below zero.
