Big Blow

It whirled in from the Northwest, gathering strength as it ran. It powdered San Francisco and Los Angeles with their first snow in ten years, trailed a white swath across the Rockies, roared down upon the Middle West in a furious gale. It blotted out roads, stalled trains, buried cars. It was too big, too dangerous for even wartime censors to keep under their hats. U.S. weather bureaus dropped their gags and signaled warnings of the winter's first big storm to farmers, truckers, pilots, linesmen.

In Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, temperatures dipped as low...