NORFOLK, Va., Feb. 10 (UPI) -- A winter storm moved east from Arkansas to the Carolinas Thursday, bringing freezing temperatures and up to half a foot of snow.
"I've been here a long time and I've never seen anything like it," said Sharon Hickman, who manages Back Yard Burgers in Tupelo, Miss.
Record-breaking low temperatures were reported in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas, where the storm hit Wednesday, AccuWeather.com reported.
In Bartlesville, Okla., the temperature was 28 degrees below zero at around 7 a.m., a record for the city and the state. It was colder in Bartlesville than at the South Pole, still in its summer season, where the low temperature Thursday was 23 degrees below zero.
Henry Margusity, an AccuWeather meteorologist, said conditions were perfect for a super-freeze with a combination of an arctic air mass and snow covering the ground. Clear skies and low winds mean the sun's heat is reflected back into space, he said.
Much of the south has seen unusually wintry weather this year. In some areas, the most recent storm mixed sleet and freezing rain in with the snow, CNN reported.
School districts in several states canceled classes for Thursday.
Officials in Oklahoma and Arkansas blamed Wednesday's storm for four traffic deaths.
The storm dumped a significant amount of snow and ice on Missouri and Oklahoma, and parts of Kentucky and Arkansas, as well as the Texas panhandle Wednesday.
Law enforcement agencies in the Memphis area warned commuters to watch for black ice on highways Thursday after more than 3 inches of snow from Wednesday's storm, The Commercial Appeal reported. Police and sheriff's departments said more than 250 traffic calls were recorded, although no serious injuries were reported.
"All I can tell you is that the number of vehicle incidents is getting higher and that accidents are everywhere," Shelby County Sheriff's spokesman Chip Washington said Wednesday. "Dispatch says there are almost too many to count right now."
The 5.7 inches Tulsa received Wednesday set a record for most snow in a single season, 26.1 inches, topping the 1923-24 winter season's total of 25.6 inches -- with several weeks of winter to go, the World reported.
