Dressed to chill, winter waltzes in

Wintry weather gripped New England yesterday, as ice storms caused power outages and traffic problems while snow-related businesses welcomed an opportunity to profit after weeks of mild temperatures .

In the Boston area, forecasters said temperatures would drop into the single digits by tonight, with a chance of snow tomorrow through Saturday. Similar predictions were issued for much of New England.

In southern New Hampshire, nearly 30,000 homes spent part of yesterday without power after an ice storm Monday night downed power lines. Authorities were particularly worried about high winds predicted tonight that could topple more ice-laden trees onto power lines, said Jim Van Dongen of the New Hampshire Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

Most of New Hampshire's problems were in the Manchester and Nashua areas, where dozens of crashes on icy roads were also reported. The slippery conditions also caused problems in Derry, Londonderry, Hudson, and the Seacoast region, authorities said.

The arctic blast arrives after a decidedly un-wintry December in a region that relies economically on skiing and snowmobiling. According to the National Weather Service, November and December were among the warmest on record for New England.

"I have been a snowmobiler since 1965; this is by far the worst season I can remember," said Bryan Watson, executive director of the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers.

Snowmobiling, which draws hundreds of tourists to New Hampshire, has taken a particularly hard hit. Almost a month after the state's 4,600-mile snowmobile trail network usually opens for the season, only one 30-mile stretch was open, Watson said.

Last week, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch held a conference to discuss the tourism industry's weather-caused woes and pledged to spend an additional $175,000 on an advertising campaign touting his state as a winter destination, snow or no snow. The first-term Democrat said he would also consider the unusual step of applying for federal disaster status to get low-interest small-business loans for struggling, snow-dependent firms.

"He'll continue to have those discussions and assess the best way to address the concerns of those groups," Colin Manning, a Lynch spokesman, said yesterday.

New Hampshire tourism officials said the ski industry's fortunes had been hurt by a "backyard effect," in which Boston-area skiers assume that trails are closed because they see no snow when looking out the window . Lynch and other state officials have said the ad campaign would target the Boston area.

However, New Hampshire ski spots finally had a respite when snow began falling over Martin Luther King Day weekend, a major holiday for ski tourism.

"Mother Nature kind of came through for us," said Chris Ellms, operations director at Bretton Woods Mountain Resort.

Material from the Associated Press was also used in this report. Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com