Coldest Weather of Season Grips U.S. Midsection, Much of the East

Bitterly cold air hit the northern plains on Friday. Snow fell on part of New England, and parts of Michigan braced for as much as 11 inches of snow by early weekend.

Storm warnings were posted for Lake Superior, northern Lake Michigan and northern Lake Huron, and gale warnings were in effect for the rest of the Great Lakes. Winds gusted to 49 m.p.h. in Buffalo, N.Y., and weather officials warned of continued high winds for parts of western New York.

The cold front that was spreading the coldest weather of the season so far across much of the nation’s midsection moved into the Appalachians during the day and headed for the East Coast.

East and south of the cold front, temperatures were in the 50s across much of New England, and in the 60s and 70s from Maryland to the Carolinas. Far behind the front, most overnight lows over the northern plains were in the teens and 20s.

Five states had at least one location each with a single-digit reading: Cut Bank, Mont., reached 1 degree above zero; Dickinson, N.D., hit 2 degrees; Cottonwood, S.D., fell to 9 degrees; Valentine, Neb., had a low of 7 degrees, and Burgess Junction, Wyo., bottomed out at 6 degrees.

Showers fell over eastern Pennsylvania, eastern New York and western New England.

Most of the precipitation was rain, but snow fell on some of the northern Green Mountains of Vermont. The Vermont Highway Department closed Route 108 through Smuggler’s Notch due to the snow.

Showers and thunderstorms spread over sections of the southern Atlantic and Gulf Coast states.