Record breaking snowfall and frigid temperatures strike the western U.S.
CBSN
Severe weather sweeping parts of the U.S. brought frigid temperatures to the Pacific Northwest, heavy snow to mountains in Northern California and Nevada and unseasonable warmth to Texas and the Southeast on Monday.
Emergency warming shelters were opened throughout Oregon and western Washington as temperatures plunged into the teens and forecasters said an arctic blast would last for several days. Sunday's snow showers blew into the Pacific Northwest from the Gulf of Alaska, dumping up to six inches across the Seattle area.
The National Weather Service said Seattle's low Sunday was 20 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking a mark set in 1948. Bellingham was nine degrees Fahrenheit, three degrees colder than the previous record set in 1971.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.