Record cold puts much of country in a deep freeze
DES MOINES, Iowa — Bone-chilling cold gripped the middle of the U.S. as 2018 began Monday, breaking a low temperature record, icing some New Year’s celebrations and leading to at least two deaths attributed to exposure to the elements.
The National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories covering a vast area from southern Texas all the way to Canada and from Montana and Wyoming in the west through New England to the northern tip of Maine.
Dangerously low temperatures enveloped eight Midwest states including parts of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Nebraska along with nearly all of Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota.
The weather service said a temperature of 15 below zero was recorded in Omaha before midnight Sunday, breaking a record low dating back to 1884, and the temperature was still dropping early New Year’s Day. That reading did not include the wind chill effect — which approached negative 40 degrees, according to forecasters.
Omaha officials cited the forecast last week in postponing the 18th annual New Year’s Eve Fireworks Spectacular that draws about 30,000 people.
It was even colder in Des Moines early Monday at 20 below zero with the wind chill dipping to 31 below zero. Officials closed a downtown outdoor ice skating plaza and said it would not reopen until the city emerges from sub-zero temperatures.
The wind chill dipped to 36 below zero in Duluth, Minn., a city known for its harsh winters. Steam rose from Lake Superior as a ship moved through the harbor where ice formed from the bitter cold.
Low temperatures also spread across the Deep South, a region more accustomed to brief bursts of arctic air than night after night below zero. Frozen pipes and dead car batteries were concerns from Louisiana to Georgia, with overnight temperatures in the teens predicted across the region.
An Indianapolis woman was in critical condition after she became confused in the snow and ice and turned her vehicle the wrong direction, driving 150 feet on a retention pond before her vehicle fell through the ice, according to WISH TV. She managed to make an emergency call but the phone went dead when the ice cracked.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s office said two bodies found Sunday showed signs of hypothermia. They included a man in his 50s found on the ground in an alley and a 34-year-old man. Autopsies were being performed on both men.
Despite a warning from the local fire chief about possible hypothermia, Milwaukee’s loosely organized annual Polar Bear Plunge into Lake Michigan proceeded Monday with temperatures just above freezing. At least one other similar event in another Wisconsin city was canceled, and a dip into the lake in Chicago — where temperatures fell below zero — was postponed.
“You’re going to get hypothermic,” Milwaukee Fire Battalion Chief Erich Roden had warned. “Everybody wants to do the polar plunge once in their life; it’s a bucket list item. Unfortunately, it’s something that can cause a lot of harm.”