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Winter-weary Fort Dodgers endured yet another icy blast Thursday that closed schools, left vehicles scattered in roadside ditches and grounded airplanes.

Temperatures early this morning were expected to be well below zero, with wind chill factors anticipated to reach -40.

Emergency officials said they had no reports of injuries or deaths related to the storm by Thursday evening.

The National Weather Service is calling the upcoming temperatures "brutally cold" - an adjective Webster County Emergency Management Agency Coordinator Tony Jorgensen said meteorologists don't usually use lightly.

A wind chill warning is in effect until noon today.

In Kossuth County, a snowplow cleared the way for an ambulance bringing a patient with chest pains from Titonka to the Kossuth Regional Medical Center in Algona, according to Jim Kelly, the emergency management coordinator in that county.

Kelly said that earlier in the day, a farmer used his tractor to make a path for another ambulance trying to reach a patient in the southern part of the county.

White-out conditions in rural areas prompted some counties to park their snowplows for all or most of the day Thursday.

Webster County Engineer Randy Will said crews in his county hit the roads at 4:30 a.m. Thursday, but stopped their efforts at about 7 a.m. because of blowing snow.

Will said the snowplows would return to the roads at 4 a.m. today.

''We should get everything open,'' he said.

Plows were also pulled off the roads in Calhoun and Hamilton counties.

In Fort Dodge, Public Works Department crews worked around the clock to keep the streets passable. City Manager David Fierke said a skeleton crew of two people and two trucks kept plowing through the overnight hours of Wednesday and Thursday. A full crew of 13 people and additional vehicles went to work at 4 a.m. Thursday.

City officials are still tallying up the bills from the snow removal efforts related to this storm and the two that struck in December. Fierke said thorough snow removal work will continue even if the budgeted amount for plowing is exceeded.

''Our service isn't going to change because we spent more than we planned to spend on snow removal,'' he said.

Classes at all public and parochial schools in Fort Dodge were canceled Thursday and today.

Delta Air Lines flights at Fort Dodge Regional Airport were canceled Thursday. Rhonda Chambers, the airport's director of aviation, said there were no private or general aviation flights, either.

Kelly, in Kossuth County, said U.S. Highway 18 there was closed and disabled semi trucks were blocking the route. He added that the county's gravel roads were ''totally impassable.''

Iowa Highway 175 near Gowrie had blown closed and Interstate Highway 35 north of Dows and a portion of U.S. Highway 20 were both closed for awhile Thursday afternoon with a semi truck blocking the travel portions of the roads.

Lt. Kelly Hindman of the Iowa State Patrol said as fast as Iowa Department of Transportation crews could plow, the wind would blow snow right back in the roads.

The blowing snow caused near zero visibility in many places, especially in rural areas Thursday.

"Sometimes it seems fine in town, but you don't have to get very far out from the city and the visibility is zero," Hindman said.

Elsewhere, the storm apparently caused little mayhem. Karrie Hull, the emergency management coordinator in Calhoun County, said ''nothing real bad'' had been reported there.

Humboldt County Emergency management Coordinator Pat Colwell said he had not received any reports of storm-related problems.

Contact Angela Burch or Bill Shea at (515) 573-2141