Dangerous Cold Grips Midwest, Northeast; More Misery On The Way

Record cold has contributed to a string of deaths across the frozen Midwest and Northeast, where an Arctic blast has shattered records and made life generally miserable for anyone who has to work outside. Some relief may arrive by mid-week, but the polar express isn’t exiting. Another batch of bitterly cold air is expected by the end of the week.

About 180 million people experienced dangerously low temperatures, including those in nearly all parts of Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota. The bone-chilling weather also gripped parts of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Nebraska.

The lowest New Year’s Day morning temperature was 45 degrees below zero in a place called Embarrass, Minnesota, an unincorporated community located on the Mesabi Iron Range that has the distinction of being the coldest place in a state that knows what cold is. It has been colder in that part of Minnesota before, but not often. The record low temperature Minnesota was recorded in Tower, which neighbors Embarrass, on Feb. 2, 1996, when the temperature plunged to -60 Fahrenheit.

Some other temperatures — and they don’t include wind-chill indices — recorded Monday, according to the National Weather Service:

Aberdeen, South Dakota: -32 degrees;
Watertown, New York: -31 degrees;
Huron, South Dakota: -27 degrees;
Sioux City, Iowa: -24 degrees;
Bangor, Maine: -24 degrees;
Des Moines, Iowa: -20 degrees;
Omaha, Nebraska: -15 degrees;
Syracuse, New York: -15 degrees;
Flint, Michigan: -11 degrees.

Wind-chill warnings stretched across 38 of the lower 48 states Sunday into Monday. Wind chills of 50 to 60 degrees below zero were recorded in the Dakotas and northern Minnesota.

East of the Rocky Mountains, only Florida and South Carolina escaped the blast of cold. Even Brownsville, Texas, a favorite destination of many Midwest snowbirds escaping the brutal temperatures, was expected to see wind-chill temperatures in the 20s.

Rare snow flurries were reported as far south as Austin, Texas, leading to a string of accidents on icy roads across the state — including one in Abilene in the central part of the state, where more than three dozen crashes were reported in a 24-hour period. In Louisiana and Georgia, there were concerns of frozen pipes and dead car batteries after below-zero temperatures continued.

Temperatures will remain cold on Wednesday, but will be more moderate than the numbing cold of the past few days, but another shot of Arctic air will spread across the Midwest and East later this week, The Weather Channel said. More records could fall in major cities Friday and Saturday, including Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist for The Weather Company, said the cold snap will last at least through the first week in January, especially in the northeastern U.S., but the cold weather pattern could relax and allow milder temperatures to take over east of the Rockies.

'Polar Plunge' Events Go On

Several deaths have been blamed on the cold. Milwaukee authorities suspect the bitter cold contributed to the death of two men whose bodies were found outside Sunday in separate incidents. In Detroit, a man whose body was discovered outside a church Monday morning likely froze to death, authorities said, though they were waiting on confirmation from the medical examiner. In Bismarck, North Dakota, exposure is blamed for the death of a man whose body was found near the river.

The annual Milwaukee Polar Bear Plunge went on New Year’s Day as planned and throngs of people plunged into Lake Michigan, despite warnings of hypothermia from local authorities as the air temperature felt like 9 degrees below zero.

"You're going to get hypothermic," Milwaukee Fire Battalion Chief Erich Roden told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "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."

At Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, hundreds took an icy plunge to start the new yea. The annual Coney Island New Year’s Day Polar Plunge, a New York tradition since 1903, also went on as scheduled, despite 17-degree temperatures.

A similar event in Chicago was called off after organizers said jumping in the lake was too dangerous. Instead of an icy dip to usher in the new year, the would-be plungers posed on the frozen beach in their swimsuits.

“I’m not happy about it,” Jeff Coggins, who helped organize the Chicago event, told WBBM-TV. “But I was down by the lake and, gosh, if you were dropped in there, it’d take you 10 minutes to get out. Someone could get tissue damage — heck, someone could die, and it’s not worth that.”

In Des Moines, where the wind chill was 31 degrees below zero, officials closed a popular outdoor ice skating plaza in the city’s downtown. It won’t reopen until temperatures go above zero.

An Iowa state representative, Ako Abdul-Samad, and a handful of others delivered meals to “homeless village,” where people shivered in tents and under blankets. About 800 people are homeless in Des Moines, according to the latest point-in-time count. About 20,000 Iowans are homeless.

“Let’s make a commitment to improve life in Iowa and in our homes,” Abdul-Samad wrote on Facebook. “The struggle is real and we can win.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Lead photo: Pedestrians are bundled up against frigid temperatures in Chicago on New Year’s Eve. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)