Dec. 28— The already ferocious early winter isn’t ready to loosen its grip, with worsening conditions forecast around much of the country.

Ice storms that were responsible for 38 deaths and cut off power to at least 550,000 homes and businesses across the southern Plains are moving northeast, followed by a blizzard across the northern Plains, where a blanket of snow has already fallen. More than a half-foot of snow and gusty winds are predicted across some parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
     The National Weather Service has issued winter storm warnings across the region, predicting heavy snowfalls of up to an inch per hour throughout the day, compounded by strong winds that could cause deep drifts and make driving hazardous.
     The heavy snow, which began early Thursday morning, was expected to taper off later in the day, but by early afternoon it resumed and continued until the evening.
     The storm wreaked havoc in parts of Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma, where ice has brought down trees and power lines and turned roads and highways into skating rinks. President Clinton declared a state of emergency in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Hundreds of thousands of residents in both states have been left without electricity.
     That storm is moving east, bringing heavy rains to the Southeast, and is expected to create blizzard conditions in the Northeast this weekend. The front will likely hit New York and New England on Friday night with precipitation continuing throughout Saturday. 

Ground Zero
Authorities blame 38 deaths on the bad weather: 22 in Texas, six in Oklahoma, four in New Mexico, two in Arkansas and one each in Missouri and Minnesota. A Greyhound bus rolled over on an icy stretch of Interstate 80 in Nebraska, injuring 33 people.
     In Texas, at least 1,000 people were stranded in their cars overnight on a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 20 east of Abilene. In Oklahoma, the dead included a 12-year-old boy whose makeshift sled barreled down a highway embankment and into the path of a tractor-trailer Wednesday.
     Ground-zero for the nasty weather was Hot Springs and other southwestern Arkansas cities, many of which lost their water treatment plants when the lights went out.
     “On a scale from one to 10, this is a 12,” Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Wednesday, assessing the damage. “This storm has not been kind to us.”
     Freezing rain fell again in part of southern Arkansas early today, prompting an ice storm warning, and freezing fog was possible over central and northern sections.
     The National Weather Service at North Little Rock said it had no reports of additional icing, however, as temperatures hovered around freezing. Precipitation was expected to move out of the state later in the day.
     The ice storm was Arkansas’ second of the month. A storm Dec. 12-13 knocked out power to nearly 250,000 customers, some of whom went without electricity for 10 days.
     A falling tree knocked down a 2-inch power cable Wednesday morning, leaving the city’s springs as the only running water in town. After water service was restored to about half the city late Wednesday, residents were warned to boil their water before drinking or cooking.
     Kevin Byrd said he used a chain saw to cut his way to the taps because so many trees were scattered on the road. “It looked like a tornado had been through,” he said.
     Around 275,000 Arkansas power customers were without service because of the storm, which wound to full strength Christmas Day and Tuesday. Also affected were 120,000 homes and businesses in Oklahoma, 106,000 in Texas and 50,000 in northern Louisiana. 

Curfew Imposed
On Interstate 20, the Texas National Guard used Humvees and all-terrain vehicles to reach the stranded motorists, and state police provided food and gasoline to motorists to keep their engine and heaters running.
     Hundreds of flights were canceled at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
     In Texarkana, mayors on both the Arkansas and Texas sides of the city imposed a curfew to discourage looting. Texarkana, Ark., required contractors to register with the city and imposed a price-gouging ban covering everything from bread to home repairs.
     “This will help us know that no fly-by-night companies are coming in here and charging a high amount for putting a plastic bag over a hole in the roof,” police spokesman Shawn Vaughn said. 

Grilling in the Cold
In Little Rock, Terry Hill put chicken on an outdoor grill to cook it before it spoiled in the refrigerator.
     “People are going to think we’re the Clampetts,” Hill said, hickory-scented smoke billowing past him.
     Renee Puskas, the manager of a Hot Springs convenience store, said the store couldn’t use its electric pumps to fill customers’ gas tanks. But the store did brisk business in cigarettes and canned goods.
     “I came south to get away from this,” she said. “I told my kids I lived in Ohio all my life and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
     The Little Rock airport reopened Wednesday afternoon after being shut Monday.
     Huckabee, who shut down the state government Wednesday, extending a state holiday, asked workers to try to make it to work today.
     While ice usually falls each year across the southern Plains, it rarely falls this heavily or this often.
 “I can’t think of any time where we had storms like this so close together,” said forecaster John MacLeod III, who co-authored a book on Arkansas’ weather history. 
The Associated Press contributed to this report.