By The Associated Press From staff and wire reports
 ATLANTA,
Georgia -- Two days before the season's official start, winter
stretched its bitter grip on Tuesday from the upper Midwest to
the Deep South.
Up to 17 inches
(43 centimeters) of snow were predicted by Tuesday for parts of
Wisconsin, with lighter amounts forecast for Minnesota, Illinois,
Indiana and Ohio. (See current National Weather Service advisories).
Snow also
fell Tuesday morning across Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and northern
Alabama.
Overnight,
temperatures throughout the Midwest registered below zero. In
Alabama, still recovering from deadly weather that struck over
the weekend, temperatures on Tuesday were expected to rise no
higher than the upper 20s.
Winter officially
arrives on Thursday, with Christmas following on Monday. This
week's early blanket of snow has many humming composer Irving
Berlin's classic, "White Christmas."
"The
last couple of years we haven't seen this kind of weather until
January," said Paul Lichte as he shoveled snow Monday for
the fourth time in front of his father's Madison, Wisconsin, law
office.
"It's
nice to have snow at Christmas, so this year we know for sure
we'll have some.
Airlines
cancel flights
Early Tuesday,
as snow fell across the Atlanta, Georgia, area, Delta Air Lines
announced it was cutting back 60 percent of its departing flights
from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. EST. The airline expected to return to
normal operations by 11 a.m. Passengers flying out of Atlanta
were asked to call the airline or log onto its web site at delta.com
to see if their flight was running on time.
Advancing
snow on Monday prompted United Airlines and American Airlines
to cancel 25 percent of their afternoon and evening flights from
O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois.
City aviation
spokeswoman Monique Bond says it was a pre-emptive move against
snow expected to hit the city by early Tuesday.
Still, an
American Airlines spokeswoman expressed confidence Monday that
the carrier would be able to handle additional accumulation in
Chicago.
"This
is Chicago, and it snows here," said Mary Frances Fagan.
In Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, nearly one-fourth of flights at Mitchell International
Airport were canceled or delayed Monday, and more than 100 Northwest
Airlines flights were delayed in and out of the Minneapolis-St.
Paul area of Minnesota.
No relief
for Plains states
By midday
Monday, up to eight inches (20 centimeters) of snow had fallen
at Rockwell, Iowa.
Schools, businesses
and services all but came to a halt Monday in Nebraska as the
state was swept by its fourth storm in a week.
Snowplows
were pulled off the roads in northeastern Nebraska's Cuming County
during the morning because of hazardous driving conditions and
snowdrifts.
Wisconsin
also had scattered school closings, and jackknifed trucks blocked
eastbound Interstate 90-94 near the Wisconsin Dells.
Travel was
discouraged in Minnesota, and about three dozen school districts
canceled classes, mostly in the southern part of the state. Blowing
snow cut visibility to less than half a mile (eight-tenths of
a kilometer) in parts of the state.
The snow even
delayed three of Minnesota's Electoral College members. The seven
electors who arrived first at the Capitol in St. Paul quickly
named three replacements, but the three missing electors then
showed up.
And there
isn't much relief in sight for the Plains.
"Another
system should arrive Wednesday," said National Weather Service
meteorologist Rick Chermok.
Clinton
releases heating money
President
Clinton ordered the release of $156 million in emergency funds
to help low-income families cope with increases in the cost of
home heating fuel this winter.
"The
significant and sustained rise in energy costs has posed a special
burden on low-income families, in many cases forcing them to choose
between food and other essentials or a bare minimum of heat in
these winter months," the president said.
The money
is allocated to all states, factoring in states' reliance on heating
oil, natural gas and propane. Cold-weather states in the Northeast
and Midwest will receive most of the funds.
It's the second
time in four months that Clinton has directed the Department of
Health and Human Services to release funds from the Low Income
Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). In September, he directed
the release of $400 million in LIHEAP emergency funds.
"Since
then, heating oil and natural gas prices have continued to rise
above earlier projections," White House press secretary Jake
Siewert said in a statement.
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