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JUNEAU, Alaska – Ted Johnson planned on using a set of logs to a build a cabin in Alaska's interior. Instead he'll burn some of them to stay warm.

Extreme temperatures — in Johnson's case about 60 below zero — call for extreme measures in a statewide cold snap so frigid that temperatures have grounded planes, disabled cars, frozen water pipes and even canceled several championship cross country ski races.

Alaskans are accustomed to subzero temperatures but the prolonged conditions have folks wondering what's going on with winter less than a month old.

National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Brown said high pressure over much of central Alaska has been keeping other weather patterns from moving through. New conditions get pushed north or south while the affected area faces daily extremes.

"When it first started almost two weeks ago, it wasn't anything abnormal," Brown said. "About once or twice every year, we get a good cold snap. But, in this case, you can call this an extreme event. This is rare. It doesn't happen every year."

Temperatures sit well below zero in the state's various regions, often without a wisp of wind pushing down the mercury further.

Johnson lives in Stevens Village, where residents have endured close to two weeks of temperatures pushing 60 below zero.

The cold has kept planes grounded, Johnson said. Food and fuel aren't coming in and they're starting to run low in the village, about 90 miles northwest of Fairbanks.

Johnson, whose home has no heater or running water, said he ventures outside only to get more logs for burning and to fetch water from a community facility. He's been saving the wood to build a cabin as a second home, but that will have to wait a few years now because the heat takes precedence.

"I've never seen it this cold for this long," he said. "I remember it 70 below one time, but not for a week and a half."

MONTPELIER, Vt. – 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. 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.

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."

No deaths were reported in the Northeast, but snowy conditions caused a 14-car crash Wednesday on Interstate 75 in Ohio and a truck that slowed to avoid the wreckage slammed into a car, killing the car's 55-year-old driver, said Tipp City patrolman Greg Adkins.

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.

Snow also cut visibility in Chicago, where airlines canceled around 250 flights Wednesday afternoon at O'Hare International Airport.

In New York, where light snow was forecast and overnight lows Thursday near Albany were expected to be around minus 10, the frigid conditions caused complications for highway managers because road salt doesn't melt ice in subzero temperatures.

"Once we get into minus 10, minus 20, in some cases we have to go to just straight sand, a light dusting of sand, on the highway to get some grit, provide some traction," said Mike Flick of the state Transportation Department in Pamelia.

Mercifully, no major precipitation was forecast for New England. Parts of the region are still recovering from a Dec. 11 ice storm that tore down trees and power lines, cutting electricity to about 1 million homes and businesses in the Northeast_ some for more than a week.

This was just arctic cold, the kind that numbs the face, kills car batteries and freezes unguarded water pipes. Residents of Ironwood, Mich., were told to keep faucets running to prevent freeze-ups after a major break left the city without water, said Gogebic County emergency services coordinator Jim Loeper.

"It slows you down a little bit. Your body doesn't move as fast as it should," said Shane West, 35, a roofer working on a house in Montpelier in 2-below cold. "Even for us, it can become a problem sometimes," he said, referring to Vermonters accustomed to cold weather.

A temperature around zero didn't faze truck driver Gary Jacobs, 49, of Barre, Vt., bundled in five layers — T-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, hooded sweatshirt and coat, in addition to snowpants, boots and a knit cap.

"People in Arizona say `It's a dry heat.' This is a fresh cold," Jacobs said.

But people who had a choice stayed inside — even skiers.

Vermont's Bolton Valley ski resort, where it was 10 below Wednesday morning, canceled night skiing through Friday night for fear that skiers could freeze if they were marooned on a malfunctioning ski lift.

A couple of ski areas in northern Minnesota closed for the day because of temperatures that reached 38 below zero at International Falls, with the wind chill during the night estimated at 50 below.

Homeless shelters were busy.

"We don't want anyone out there," said Kathryn Paquette, homeless outreach specialist of Southern New Hampshire Services in Nashua, N.H., which found rooms at rooming houses, motels and shelters for dozens.

Honda Motor Co. canceled two shifts at three Ohio plants so their roughly 5,000 workers wouldn't have to risk the cold and slippery roads, spokesman Ron Lietzke said.

Maine residents braced for nighttime readings down to 40 below zero. And in the Midwest, Iowans were warned that temperatures could drop as far as 27 below zero during the night, matching a Jan. 15 record set in 1972.

Temperatures on Thursday were expected to range from 10 below zero in the far north to the low teens in southern coastal areas.

Farther south, morning temperatures were in the 20s from Texas to Georgia, and along the Gulf Coast the weather service reported a low of just 28 at Mobile, Ala.

Even northern Georgia and Kentucky could see single-digit lows by Friday, with zero possible at Lexington, Ky., the weather service warned. Kentucky hasn't been that cold since December 2004.

I hope the incoming President enacts his climate change policies soon, we cannot afford it getting so hot that we have record cold temperatures any longer!

you should drink another beer, your sounding like MEM...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alabama was colder than Alaska, water fountains froze into ice sculptures in South Carolina and Florida shivered through a brush of Arctic air blast that deadened car batteries in the Northeast and prompted scattered Midwest power outages.

As Southerners awaited an expected weekend thaw, the Northeast persisted under the bitterly cold air from Canada that sent temperatures plunging in some places below minus 30 degrees and left even longtime residents reluctant to venture outdoors.

Quentin Masters braved the chilly weather, making a trip to a Syracuse, N.Y., post office to mail his sister a gift for her birthday Monday.

"It was almost too cold to come down," he said, but he added, "I don't want to be late."

Single-digit temperatures and subzero wind chills were expected in western New York through the weekend, with more seasonable conditions moving in early next week.

To Southerners, who rarely see temperatures so cold, the icebox-like weather was the most jarring. Construction worker Allen Johnson wore a gray beanie, flannel shirt, long johns and boots as he stopped for coffee in Montgomery, Ala., after an overnight low of 22 degrees Friday.

"No matter how bad it is, it could be worse — we could be in Anchorage, Alaska," Johnson said. Actually, the temperature was about 20 degrees warmer in Anchorage on Friday.

Freezing temperatures threatened to kill picturesque Spanish moss hanging from Gulf Coast trees. In Spartanburg, S.C., a hard freeze coated a water fountain in shimmering icicles. And it was too cold to bet on dogs in West Virginia.

In Tennessee, Heather Davis, of NashvillePAW Magazine, watched her photographer unsuccessfully try to coax their cover model, a white poodle named Cotton, to pose outdoors for the animal publication. Cotton, who is up for adoption, ran to the car and didn't want to leave.

"I don't think I realized how cold it was," Davis said, laughing.

But gusting winds were no laughing matter in Ohio, where temperatures pushed to their lowest this winter and forced scattered power outages. Lows ranged from minus 6 degrees in Cincinnati to minus 14 degrees in Dayton and Toledo — just missing record lows for Friday's date.

Thousands in Ohio and Illinois lost power for several hours while Charleston, W.Va.-based Appalachian Power, which delivers electricity to more than 1 million customers Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, had record electricity demand as businesses and homes cranked up the heat.

In Columbus, Ohio, 45-year-old Brandon Champney beat the cold by visiting the orchid exhibit at the Franklin Park Conservatory — a deliciously climate-controlled 72 degrees.

"It's beautiful, warm, great," Champney said.

The cold claimed at least six lives and contributed to dozens of traffic accidents. One death involved a man in a wheelchair who was found in subzero temperatures stuck in the snow, a shovel in his hand, outside his home in Des Moines, Iowa.

In central Pennsylvania, AAA fielded a spike in calls from motorists whose batteries went dead or door locks froze shut. Wind chills were as low as 25 degrees below zero in greater Pittsburgh.

In Michigan, a winter storm watch was in effect for parts of the Lower Peninsula, where up to 8 inches of snow could fall by Sunday morning, the National Weather Service said.

And in Illinois, where a low of 32 degrees below zero was recorded in a north-central area Friday, the weather service predicted only modest weekend relief — sort of. The mercury was expected to head Saturday into the 20s in northern Illinois and the 30s in southern Illinois.

PHILADELPHIA – President-elect Barack Obama, cheered by onlookers along the train route Abraham Lincoln took nearly a century and a half earlier, undertook the final leg of his inaugural journey to the nation's capital Saturday, pledging to reclaim America's spirit but also warning of steep challenges facing the country.

Hundreds of people screamed and cheered as Obama waved from the back of his inaugural train when it rolled slowly through the station in little Claymont, Del., on the way to larger crowds at stops in Wilmington, Del., and Baltimore on the route to Washington.

Unfazed by frigid temperatures, scattered groups stood waving at crossroads along the way.

"Starting now, let's take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union," Obama told several hundred people gathered for the sendoff inside a hall at Philadelphia's historic 30th Street train station. "Let's build a government that is responsible to the people and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable. ... Let's make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning and the hope for the future."

While talking about the future, Obama reflected on the past, echoing the words of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln and President John F. Kennedy. He cited the founding fathers who risked everything with no assurance of success in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776:

"They were willing to put all they were and all they had on the line — their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor — for a set of ideals that continue to light the world: That we are equal. That our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come not from our laws, but from our maker. And that a government of, by, and for the people can endure."

Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who hopped aboard the train in Wilmington, said the train ride marked the beginning of a journey that would change America.

"Our economy is struggling. We are a nation at war," Biden said. "Sometimes, just sometimes, it's hard to believe that we'll see the spring again. But I tell you spring is on the way with this new administration."

Supporters, shivering in the cold, gathered all along the rails.

Waldomann:
So how much money did Mann make?

And these are interesting deductions: Mann must be lying because he is so successful at getting funds and developing a solid reputation among his peers; not only that, he’s been officially cleared – he must be guilty!

Keep following that logic, folks…