By Daniel Lovering
PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Bone-chilling cold swept across the snow-hit Great Plains and Midwest on Monday, closing schools and playing havoc with travel plans and pushing sub-freezing temperatures as far south as Florida.
Minnesota and Wisconsin shivered in temperatures not expected to top single digits -- with wind chills much colder than that -- and motorists were stranded on impassable roads in northwest Indiana.
Air traffic was gradually returning to normal after hundreds of flights were canceled at airports in midwestern and East Coast hubs during the worst of a storm that dropped 17 inches of snow in Minneapolis on Sunday that ripped holes in a stadium's inflatable roof.
Another 75 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport on Monday.
"We aren't anticipating any more cancellations," said American Airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan.
There were winter storm warnings posted for parts of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, western Pennsylvania, western New York and Vermont, forecasters said.
Pittsburgh braced up to four inches of snow to accumulate on Monday and another six inches by early Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
"Cities that will have enough snow to cause travel trouble this time around will include Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh," said AccuWeather.com meteorologist Justin Povick.
Lake-effect snows -- generated when cold air whips up storm clouds off the warmer Great Lakes -- continued to plague narrow stretches of northwest Indiana, northern Ohio, and western New York.
Cleveland, on Lake Erie, could get as much as eight inches through Tuesday.
TRAVEL TOUGH
While Midwestern skies had mostly cleared, the landscape was ice-bound and blanketed with snow.
"It will be a tough, tough day for transportation across the Midwest whether we are talking livestock, barges or human beings," said forecaster Mike Palmerino of Telvent DTN.
In Minneapolis, where the Metrodome stadium's inflatable roof collapsed under the weight of snow, schools were closed. Buses could not travel on snowbound roads, and there was concern for children waiting for buses in the cold.
In the Southeast, temperatures dipped below 20 degrees with light snow that forced the closing of some schools and roads, authorities said.
"We've had an increase in accidents on the roads," said Yasamie Richardson, spokeswoman for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. "Some schools have been closed."
Schools in Nashville, Tennessee, were also closed as a coating of snow made for treacherous road conditions.
The frigid weather was supposed to last through midweek, with another storm arriving in the Midwest on Thursday, the National Weather Service said.
(Additional reporting by John Rondy in Milwaukee, Chris Stebbins in Chicago, David Beasley in Atlanta, Ellen Wulfhorst in New York; Editing by Andrew Stern and Jerry Norton)