After brutal cold days, weather begins to ease

Bone-chilling cold that paralysed a chunk of the United States this week and killed at least 18 people eased on Friday as an errant Arctic air mass retreated ahead of a warmer-than-normal weekend in areas of the Midwest and Northeast.

In Chicago, where the mercury dipped as low as minus 22 Fahrenheit this week, temperatures of 22F (minus 5.5C) by Friday afternoon felt balmy for some in the nation’s third-largest city.

“It’s got to be an almost 50 degree difference, it feels like spring,” said one commuter heading home from Chicago’s downtown financial district, wearing only a sweatshirt.

Cable worker Brian Stachovic said he was up an electrical pole for only five minutes on Thursday before his fingers and toes went numb, and he had to go inside to avoid frostbite.

“Today, working outside it was like normal,” said Stachovic, 40, wearing brown overalls and insulated gloves, as he worked in Chicago’s downtown.

Temperatures from southern New England to the upper Midwest should reach the mid-40s to low 50s Fahrenheit through the weekend and Monday, forecasters said, after a record-breaking cold snap that stopped mail deliveries in some parts of the Midwest and shuttered schools and businesses.

“The bitter cold air is going to be pushed up into Canada,” said Bob Smerbeck, senior meteorologist for Accuweather.

The Midwest’s worst cold snap in two decades was created by the polar vortex, a reservoir of icy air that usually swirls over the North Pole. Shifting air currents caused it to slip down through Canada and into the US Midwest this week.

Temperatures on Friday afternoon ranged from the teens to the twenties, after cities like Chicago experienced sub-zero temperatures for two days and opened additional warming centers for the homeless. At least 18 deaths have been linked to the deep freeze since Saturday, and the number was expected to climb as authorities identified more victims.