New cold front keeps chill on Oklahoma

``It could be worse. Right now in Minot, North Dakota, it's minus 8 with northwest winds of about 35 miles per hour,'' said Speheger, a National Weather Service forecaster.

That said, Oklahoma's cold snap preparing to enter its second week is nothing to scoff at.

After temperatures reached into the 50s and 60s across southern Oklahoma Friday, an arctic burst of wind Saturday froze any hopes of a warming trend.

Frederick saw a high of 60 degrees Friday only to dip to 39 by midday Saturday. Gage in northwest Oklahoma got up to 54 Friday, but stumbled to 32 degrees on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

It wasn't so much the cold as the wind that was bothering Barbara Tucker, of Frederick, Saturday.

Breezes were blowing as fast as 40 miles per hour in some parts of Oklahoma.

``Yesterday, it was lovely. You didn't need a jacket or anything,'' Tucker said Saturday afternoon. ``And then today you can't even stand up out there.''

Tucker said she regretted having put off some chores Friday, but that the wind appeared to have taken care of at least one of them.

``I needed to rake some leaves, but with the way they're moving down the street they could be gone,'' she said.

Oklahoma City, where many hoped the slush would be melted away by another warm day, dropped from 37 degrees at 7 a.m. Saturday to 29 degrees by noon.

Despite the temperature drop, Speheger said clear skies were supposed to at least delay major problems until Saturday night, when temperatures were expected to reach as low as zero degrees in some parts of the state.

``We have quite a bit of sunlight to melt the slush and ice on the roadways, but later tonight we may have patches that refreeze on the roadways,'' Speheger said. ``That should only be a problem in the residential areas and the roads that didn't get cleared off too much. The Interstates seem to be in pretty good shape.''

But refreezing caused by the colder temperatures brought spots of problems.

An Oklahoma Highway Patrol dispatcher reported several crashes Saturday morning along an elevated stretch of Interstate 40 running through Oklahoma City.

In Tulsa County, a brief dusting of snow early Saturday morning caused a few accidents but nothing major, an OHP dispatcher said. By noon, the skies over Tulsa were clear although the temperature was colder than even the night before.

Meanwhile, flights were again taking off and landing in Oklahoma City and Tulsa Saturday morning, a day after dozens of flights in and out of the cities were canceled due to thick fog.

Speheger said the cold weather was expected to last over the next several days, with highs in the 30s predicted for much of Oklahoma.

``It's not going to warm up a whole lot, but we'll be better than what we are today,'' he said.