L.A. Basks but Most of U.S. Is Freezing, Foggy

Southern Californians basked in clear, sunny weather, with temperatures in the 80s on Christmas Day, but for much of the rest of the nation, it was winter as usual--snow and subfreezing cold in the East and Midwest and fog that shrouded the Pacific Northwest, stretching as far south as the San Joaquin Valley.

The highest reading in the nation was 86 degrees at Palm Springs. The high at the Los Angeles Civic Center on Wednesday was 82, well below Tuesday’s record-setting mark of 87--and the Christmas Day record of 85 set in 1980--but still warm enough to prompt thousands to abandon their homes for local beaches.

“It is crowded and the weather is absolutely great,� said Malibu lifeguard Spike Beck. “The kids are all down here with their Christmas surfboards and new wet suits.�

56-Degree Waters

Beck said University of Iowa football fans, here for the New Year’s Day Rose Bowl game between the Hawkeyes and UCLA Bruins, were braving the surf without protective wet suits, despite water temperatures that hovered down near 56 degrees.

“They’re all out here in their Iowa sweat shirts, and they’re all going in the water,� Beck said. “They’re nuts.�

The balmy Southland beaches stood in stark contrast to the eastern half of the nation on Wednesday, where subfreezing temperatures and biting winds drove the wind-chill factor close to 50 degrees below zero in some areas.

In Chicago, where the wind-chill was estimated at 42 below zero, hundreds jammed Salvation Army Centers to escape the bitter cold.

“We’ve had to turn away a few families,� said Ronny Holloway, an assistant supervisor at the Salvation Army’s North Side emergency lodge. “We’ve got 98 families here now, and there’s no more room.�

The Men’s Shelter on New York’s Lower East Side handed out free wool caps and gloves to the homeless and needy, setting out a turkey dinner for more than 1,500 who lined up in subfreezing temperatures for a hot holiday meal.

Cold Christmas

The coldest spots in the 48 contiguous states were Hibbing, Minn., and Houghton Lake, Mich., where the mercury plunged to 18 below. In Houghton Lake, it was the coldest Christmas Day since 1921.

Freezing rain, sleet and snow fell along a band that stretched from Georgia to New England.

Atlanta reported the first Christmas Day snow since 1970, and as much as four inches fell in the mountains of North Carolina.

More than a foot of snow fell in Vermont during the night, turning the town of Bennington into a scene from a Christmas card.

“It’s beautiful,� said John Miller, a holiday visitor at an inn in Bennington. “What else can you say about snow, other than it’s beautiful�?

But for thousands of Christmas travelers, the wintry beauty was tempered by the delays it caused, with vehicular traffic slowing to a crawl along many of the Eastern Seaboard’s major interstate highways.

Traffic Snarled

In the Pacific Northwest, it was fog that snarled the traffic, both on the ground and in the air. Flights in and out of Seattle-Tacoma Airport were delayed for the ninth straight day, and forecasters said more fog--along with subfreezing temperatures that have been icing highways, triggering chain-reaction accidents--were expected in western Washington through the weekend.

Reno encountered a different kind of fog--pogonip, a dense, ground-level blanket choked with snow crystals that forced the sporadic closing of the city’s Cannon International Airport because of limited visibility and ice buildup on aircraft.

Airport officials seeded the fog bank with dry ice, causing a brief clearing that allowed several planes to take off and land.

“It was very dramatic,� said John Doherty of the Desert Research Institute, which conducted the experiment at the airport. “It started to snow lightly enough to wet the ground, and then (for a few minutes) blue skies appeared.�

By Wednesday afternoon, though, the airport was socked in again, as were airfields the length of California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys.

Dense Fog

Sacramento suffered through its 14th consecutive day of dense fog, breaking the old record of 13 days, set in 1975. Bakersfield had a record-tying 12th straight day of fog, and forecasters said the weather in both areas was expected to remain much the same for the next few days.

The weather in the Los Angeles area is not expected to change much either, with fair skies and high temperatures in the low 80s and upper 70s forecast for today and Friday. Temperatures should cool a little by the weekend, with highs in the 60s and 70s on Saturday and Sunday and an increase in fog and low clouds along the coast in the morning and evening hours.

The California Highway Patrol warned that despite the generally good weather in the Southland, drivers should remain especially alert for traffic hazards created by motorists who may have had too much to drink.

Between 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve and 6 a.m. on Christmas Day, 50 motorists were arrested by the CHP in the Los Angeles area and booked on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, and local law enforcement agencies reported dozens of additional arrests during the same period.

The Highway Patrol, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and other agencies said extra patrol units will remain on duty until after the New Year’s holiday to arrest intoxicated drivers.