27 Inches of Snow Dumped on Twin Cities : Weather: At least eight deaths have been blamed on storm. Flight delays and hundreds of traffic accidents reported from Rockies to Great Lakes.

A storm riding bone-chilling arctic winds into the Midwest buried the Twin Cities under a record 27 inches of snow Friday.

Blizzard warnings were in effect for southern Minnesota, western Wisconsin and parts of Iowa and South Dakota.

At least eight deaths were blamed on the storm, two in Sioux Falls, S. D., five in the Twin Cities area and one in Des Moines, where one inch of ice was on the ground.

Sioux Falls had 11 inches of snow on the ground, forcing schools and businesses to close, and gusting wind in Wyoming sent the windchill factor down to 31 degrees below zero.

Heavy snow spread from the Rockies to Texas to the Great Lakes region, causing hundreds of traffic accidents and delaying flights.

Meanwhile, coastal communities from Maine to Florida began assessing damage from a fierce Atlantic storm.

The “megastorm”--as the National Weather Service called it--moved into Minnesota on Thursday. The 25 inches of snow broke a Jan. 22-23, 1982, record of 20 inches in a 24-hour period, the weather service said.

The storm shut down Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Friday night.

Rope-tethered workers sprayed hot water to melt the snow on the Teflon-covered fabric roof of the Metrodome, where the World Series was played last Sunday, to ensure that it did not sag.

Residents heeded advice to stay off roads unless travel was vital. Most downtown office buildings and parking garages were empty.

The storm’s wake could be equally dangerous, the weather service said.

“The whole story is not just the snow,” said weather service forecaster Bill Harrison. “Winds and colder temperatures will move back in.”

The storm contributed to hundreds of traffic accidents even though snowplows and sand trucks were out in full force. But no serious injuries were reported.

A 102-mile stretch of Interstate 90 from the South Dakota line to Fairmont was closed because of blowing snow and poor visibility, the State Patrol said.

Scattered power outages were reported overnight in southern Minnesota, and Gov. Arne Carlson declared a state of emergency in two southern Minnesota counties.

Snowfall eased Friday in Kansas, but strong wind created near-blizzard conditions and heavy ice buildup downed electrical lines in the northeast and the Wichita area, leaving hundreds of people without power.

At Hiawatha in northeastern Kansas, a 250-foot section of a 495-foot cable TV tower collapsed under the weight of ice.

In Wyoming, morning temperatures plummeted to 6 degrees at Gillette, where gusting wind created a windchill factor of 31 below. The relative “hot spot” Friday afternoon was Evanston, which reported light fog, 29 degrees and a windchill factor of 13 degrees above zero.

A blowing snow advisory remained in effect for east-central and southeastern Colorado.

Schools and businesses were closed in South Dakota in the wake of a Halloween snowstorm. The 11-inch snowfall in Sioux Falls was a record for October, the weather service said. Other snow depths around the state ranged from 3 to 11 inches.

Blowing and drifting snow pushed by 50 m.p.h. wind whited out western Iowa as icy conditions sent cars spinning and tree limbs crashing onto power lines and houses. At least 17,000 customers of Iowa utilities were left without power.

At least four deaths were blamed on the storm that battered the Eastern Seaboard, where massive cleanup efforts got under way.

Teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived in Maine on Friday, and Gov. John R. McKernan Jr. plans to ask President Bush to declare the state’s southern coast a federal disaster area, making residents eligible for loans to repair the damages from the flooding Wednesday evening.

Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld asked Bush to declare six coastal counties disaster areas, and governors from some other hard-hit states were doing the same.

Bush will get a firsthand look today when he travels to Kennebunkport, Me., to inspect the damage to his vacation home.