Life-threatening cold
Large part of US population enduring extreme weather
One of the coldest air masses in decades kept its icy grip on the US Midwest on Wednesday, breaking temperature records, causing several deaths and forcing hundreds of schools and businesses to close.
Many temperatures in the Midwest fell below the high of -12 C on Wednesday in Fairbanks, Alaska, a city of 31,000 about 200 kilometers from the Arctic Circle.
Governors of Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan have declared emergencies. About 220 million people — or 75 percent of the continental US population — will endure belowfreezing temperatures this week, CNN reported.
More than 2,000 flights were canceled across the United States, most of which were heading into or out of the frozen Midwest, according to FlightAware.
At least seven deaths were linked to the cold weather, AP reported, including a man hit by a snow plow in the Chicago region, a man believed to have frozen to death in a Milwaukee garage, and a couple killed in a vehicle accident on an Indiana road.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, officials warned that anyone venturing into the cold on Thursday morning could suffer frostbite in as little as 5 minutes.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said: “These (conditions) are actually a public health risk, and you need to treat it appropriately. They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures.”
Hundreds of businesses and public schools and several large universities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania canceled classes on
Tuesday and planned to do so Wednesday.
In Chicago, known as the “Windy City” for winds whipping off Lake Michigan, temperatures fell to -28 C early on Wednesday, breaking the previous record low set in 1966. The cold even forced the Lincoln Park Zoo to close.
In many areas, the focus was on protecting the homeless and the elderly.
Warming centers
Chicago turned five buses into makeshift warming centers that moved around the city, some with nurses aboard, to encourage the homeless to come in from the cold.
In Michigan, homeless shelters were filling up in Detroit, and they were overloaded in Lansing, according to the city’s mayor.
Native American tribes in the Upper Midwest worked to help members, especially the elderly, with heating supplies.
Chris Fairbanks, emergency assistance program manager for the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, called the situation “scary” because many houses are substandard.
Detroit’s outlook for Wednesday was for overnight lows at -24 C, with wind chills dropping to -37 C.
The US Postal Service said it would suspend mail delivery on Wednesday in parts or all of several Midwestern states, including North Dakota and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.
The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex, a large area of low pressure and cold air at the Earth’s poles. During the winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the polar vortex expands, sending cold air south — jokingly called “Canada’s greatest export” by some in the US.
The below-zero temperatures will move to the eastern region on Thursday.
In New York, a snow squall flashed through the city Wednesday afternoon, lasting about half an hour. Meteorologists compared the quick-hitting storm to a summer thunderstorm in brevity and intensity.
By dawn on Thursday, the temperature in the city is expected to fall to 3 C, with wind chills around -15 C.
But the cold will be short-lived in New York. Daytime temperatures are forecast to climb above zero by Saturday.