A shroud of bone-chilling arctic air has covered the US east coast and Midwest, creating dangerous conditions as tens of millions of people struggled to clean up from a blizzard that dumped deep, drifting snow in many areas earlier this week.
Wind chill and freeze warnings stretched from New England to Ohio and Pennsylvania, while the National Weather Service warned of freezing rain in Missouri and areas to the northeast.
In some of those places, exposed skin could freeze within 30 minutes, said meteorologist Dan Petersen of the National Weather Service's Maryland-based Weather Prediction Center.
At the Whoopie Pie Cafe in Bangor, Maine, business was slow because of the cold, cashier and waiter Liz Gallagher, 58, said by phone. "Nobody goes out when it's really cold, at least I wouldn't," said the life-long Bangor resident.
The cold snap complicated efforts by crews to clear snow and ice from roadways after the blizzard, which clobbered the Northeast after sprinkling snow in areas as far south as Savannah, Georgia and Tallahassee, Florida.
In New England and the Middle Atlantic states, the storm forced hundreds of schools to close and commuter rail services to suspend or reduce service.
Cold and snowy weather was blamed for at least 18 deaths in the past few days, including four in North Carolina traffic accidents and three in Texas.
"The magnitude of the cold and the area of coverage of the cold is really what's impressive to me," said meteorologist Ed Vallee, owner of Vallee Weather Consulting.
Killington, the famous Vermont ski resort, closed on Saturday even though snow conditions were excellent, saying wind chill on the slopes was at least minus 46 degrees Celsius.
"It's just too cold to put folks out there," the resort said on its website.
In neighbouring New Hampshire, the ambient air temperature on Mount Washington plunged to minus 38C, two degrees short of a record low for January 6. But sustained winds of 159 km/h and gusts of up to 180 km/h atop the 1,990-metre peak made it feel more like minus 69 Celsius, the NWS said.
The brutal cold in parts of the East Coast and Midwest shows no sign of abating this weekend, but a thaw should begin on Monday, said meteorologist Bob Oravec of the Weather Prediction Center. Before then, conditions will probably worsen.
