Visitors make way to Florida to escape bitter cold snap

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The temperatures suddenly jump up, the moment you touch down in south Florida. At Palm Beach International Airport on Tuesday evening, passengers were peeling off winter weather wear, after arriving from the middle part of the country.
 
"I'm hot now," said Sheri Chaney, of West Palm Beach, who had just landed from Chicago. "Ready to get out of these layers."

Chaney was very happy to be leaving temperatures in the single digits - or lower - far behind. "When I went out the door I had to run right back in because that wind cuts your face."
 
Chaney is not alone in her yearning for Florida's winter weather. "Freezing, to put it mildly," said Trish Harper, who hails from Chicago. Harper is in the Sunshine State visiting her mother in Hobe Sound. She said this trip - away from the deep freeze - could not have come at a better time. "Frozen tundra or going to the beach. Lots better here," she said.
 
While people in much of the northern United States can barely venture outside for a moment, many people were dining al fresco on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, enjoying a meal in the mild temperatures.