MARSHALL — The past few weeks have taken southwest Minnesota from relatively mild weather to periods of low temperatures and sub-zero wind chills — and that can take a toll on everything from vehicles to plumbing.

Marshall area businesses and utility providers said this week that the first severe cold spell of the winter meant a lot of work for them, and an increased need for supplies like car batteries.

“The first cold snap, our battery guy had to come twice that week,” said Jim Illies at Marshall Prairie Pride/Tires Plus.

Around that same time period, Pulver Towing in Marshall was taking a lot of calls for stalled semi trucks and other vehicles. Across southern Minnesota, “We had a major increase in semis,” said Josh Schafer, operations manager for the Marshall division of Pulver Towing.

But at the same time, area businesspeople said problems like dead vehicle batteries were becoming less frequent after the initial wave of cold days.

The first run of severely cold days this winter hit the region in the last week of December. In a 2017 climate summary, the National Weather Service office in Sioux Falls reported an average temperature of three degrees below zero for Dec. 25-31. It was the coldest average temperature on record for that week, the summary said. Wind chills around Dec. 31 also ranged from 25 to 40 degrees below zero in the region.

When temperatures get that cold, it can cause a variety of problems with vehicles, Illies and Schafer said. The cold can drain a vehicle battery, or lead to flat tires, especially on vehicles with aluminum wheel rims, Illies and Schafer said.

In diesel vehicles like semi trucks, severe cold can cause diesel fuel to gel, or solidify, and plug up fuel filters, Schafer said. It was a common problem for semis across southern Minnesota during the worst of the cold. Schafer estimated that between its divisions in Rochester and Marshall, Pulver towed around 200 semis.

As of Friday, the number of calls for cold-related vehicle problems had decreased, local service providers said. Part of that was likely because so many old or failing vehicle batteries had been replaced in the area.

“The extreme cold really brings out the problems, so to speak, with batteries,” said Brad Rosa, manager of the Cottonwood Co-Op Oil Company. The co-op provides automotive, heating and plumbing services in the Cottonwood and Wood Lake area. Rosa said the co-op also received calls about furnace problems from some of its customers. The extreme cold snap made it easy for people to tell if their heat wasn’t working.

Rosa said the worst effect of the cold was the cost of fuel oil and propane. Prices for propane heating fuel were up compared to last year, he said.

Cold temperatures have also damaged pipes in the area in the past couple of weeks. In Marshall, there was a water main break on Williams Street in the first week of January, said Jeff Larson, water operations manager at Marshall Municipal Utilities. An MMU crew was able to repair the break in about three to four hours, Larson said.

“There have been numerous pipes frozen in structures,” as well, he said. While Larson said MMU doesn’t repair pipe breaks on private properties in Marshall, it does stop water service while repairs are being done.

Although severe cold can be bad news for frozen pipes, Larson said this year’s late winter does have one positive side. The frost hasn’t had a chance to go as deep underground as it would have if cold temperatures had been around longer. In turn, that means less of a chance for water main damage, he said.

Southwest Minnesota hasn’t seen the last of bitter cold and blowing snow yet. Snow fell in the Marshall area on Sunday afternoon, and the National Weather Service office in Sioux Falls issued a wind chill warning lasting from midnight Sunday until noon Tuesday. The warning affects an area including Lyon, Lincoln, Murray, Cottonwood, Nobles, Jackson and Pipestone counties. Wind chills in the region are expected to range from 25 to 35 degrees below zero, the National Weather Service said.