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Read our latest report: Extreme cold in Midwest will finally begin to ease grasp
At least 16 deaths have been linked to this week’s extreme weather.
The deaths were reported across Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Indiana since the weekend.
In Iowa, at least four weather-related deaths were reported Thursday, Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Nathan Ludwig told CNN.
Almost 50 frostbite victims were treated at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital in Chicago over the last two days.
Poulakidas said they’ve seen “horrific injuries to feet and hands” due to Chicago’s brutally cold temperatures. Some of the injuries were so severe that some patients may lose limbs.
Doctors tried to use “alternative services” to save limbs on 12 patients in the last 24 hours.
Frostbite in these extreme conditions can set in three to 10 minutes depending on age, exposure and other factors like wet gloves and socks, or even alcohol consumption, Poulakidas said. The victims included a mix of the homeless and people working outdoors.
Doctors also saw patients who suffered burns and smoke inhalation from space heaters or moved grills indoors for warmth, Poulakidas said.
Noreen Keeney, spokesperson for Cook County Health, said that even as temperatures begin to rise on Friday, they are expecting an uptick in frostbite cases of people who put off medical treatment.
A zebra on a private farm near Delphi, Indiana, died as a result of the bitter cold and extreme weather blasting the Midwest, sheriff’s officials said.
The zebra got stuck in a metal fence, and died as it tried to free itself in the arctic air, Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby said.
After consulting with a veterinarian, the sheriff said he and the department learned the cold air likely crystalized in the zebra’s lungs, which led to its death. Leazenby said the temperature at the time of the incident was between 10 and 15 below zero.
The private farm houses other animals, including another zebra, the sheriff said. No other animals were harmed by the cold temperatures.
The National Weather service says the life-threatening cold that has gripped the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, in addition to the Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast is near an end.
By Friday, temperatures in the Upper Midwest will finally rebound to well above zero –with high temperatures making it to the teens and low 20s.
By Saturday, high temperatures will be in the 30s and 40s.
Chicago had a brutally cold Wednesday.
It was 18 degrees below zero at noon — the second coldest noon ever recorded in the city. The record is still 1982, when it was 21 degrees below zero.
The day’s lowest temperature was 23 degrees below zero. That marked the coldest temperature since the all-time record of 27 degrees below zero in 1985.
Here’s a look at some of the other records from Chicago, per the National Weather Service:
The cold and snow have taken a toll on the airlines.
Nearly 6,400 flights have been canceled in and out of the US, since the snow and cold began on Tuesday, according to flightaware.com.
Chicago airports have been particularly hard hit, with more than 4,100 cancellations reported in and out of O’Hare and Midway airports over the last three days.
It’s insanely cold in Wisconsin – and it’s about to get even colder – but that’s not stopping firefighters from doing their duty.
Cameron Fire Department Chief Mitch Hansen was pictured with a frozen beard and after battling a house fire in minus 50 wind chills Wednesday. “The fire gutted the home but everybody got out safe. We saved what items we could for them,” Tony Paulson, one of the firefighters, told CNN.
Assistant Chief Bimbo Gifford, who took the picture of Hansen, said he’s been a volunteer with the department for decades and this is the first time he had to battle a fire with such freezing temperatures.
“It’s tough. We’re a small team of volunteers but we’re careful and trained,” he told CNN. “When it’s that cold you just can’t move.”
The Old Guard is on duty in the frigid temperatures outside the Tomb of the Unknown at Arlington National Cemetery.
The guard is changed every hour when the cemetery is open, Major Stephen Von Jett said. At night, the shifts vary.
“Our Soldiers have great cold weather equipment that allows them to brave these conditions, but it’s their commitment to the mission, and to representing the US Army’s commitment to the American people that keeps their backs straight against the wind,” Von Jett said.
The nation’s leading mail and package delivery carriers have cancelled or suspended service in a handful of states that are most impacted by this freezing weather.
Because let’s face it – would you want to be out, walking about, handling packages when you can’t feel your fingers or toes?
UPS says some zip codes in the following states are affected:
FedEx says they are offering partial service, “dependent on local conditions,” in the following states:
And the USPS says the following 3-digit zip code locations are affected:
For more information on USPS service, click here.
For more information on UPS service, click here.
For more information on FedEx service, click here.
The cold weather is keeping Michigan state offices closed for another day. Parts of Michigan will experience wind chills as low as -45 degrees F.
General Motors is suspending more operations at more than a dozen manufacturing sites to help with the gas shortages at Michigan’s Consumers Energy.
The shortage was caused by a fire at a compressor station in Jackson, Michigan. Consumers Energy provides natural gas and electricity to 6.6 million Michigan residents.
Operations have been suspended in 13 locations. A spokesperson for GM did not indicate if employees would be paid during the suspension.
GM operations are suspended at the following Michigan locations:
The record cold sweeping across the US is having deadly consequences. There have been at least 11 deaths reported.
What we know:
In a late night news briefing on Wednesday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pleaded with residents in the state’s lower peninsula to turn down their heat to 65 degrees until tomorrow at noon. Consumer Energy made the same request.
A fire at a Consumer Energy compressor station in Jackson, Michigan, is inhibiting utility operators’ ability to deliver gas to customers.
Businesses, too, have been asked to curb natural gas usage. General Motors has suspended production for its Flint Assembly plant.
Here’s the request from Consumer Energy’s president and CEO:
The Windy City has become the frozen city.
CNN’s Leonel Mendez took a time lapse video at sunrise showing steam rising off icy Lake Michigan.
Why the lake is steaming: Steam can rise off a lake when the water is warmer than the cold air above it. Here’s how NASA describes it: “As cold, dry air moved over the lakes, it mixed with warmer, moister air rising off the lake surfaces, transforming the water vapor into fog — a phenomenon known as steam fog.”
Watch the video:
Today is the last of the extreme cold air, and temperatures are expected to rebound quickly over much of the area that saw the extreme cold.
For example:
Extreme cold continues to grip much of the eastern half of the country and has become more widespread with dangerous cold and wind chills extend from the Upper Midwest to Maine.
Here’s where things stand this morning:
The winter weather isn’t done with Chicago; now there is talk of frost quakes.
Here’s what that means: A frost quake, or cryoseism, occurs when the water underground freezes and expands causing the soil and rock to crack.
There’s often a booming or banging sound, which usually begins when there is a sudden drop in temperature, WGN reported, much like Chicago’s recent dip to a record-breaking low of 27 below.
CNN affiliate WGN reported Wednesday that viewers in the Chicago area were awakened by a series of booms.
A deep freeze swept over the Midwest and parts of the Northeast today.
The frigid cold temperatures forced road, school and state office closures. Mail and train services were also suspended in some states.
In Chicago, officials set railroad tracks on fire because the extreme cold could cause defects.
This is what it looked across the rest of the Midwest today:
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Nebraska
New York
Wisconsin
Seven people were injured after a multi-car pileup occurred during a sudden snow squall in Pennsylvania, Wyomissing Police Chief Jeffrey Biehl told CNN.
At least 26 cars were involved in the crash that occurred shortly after 1 p.m. ET on Route 222 in Wyomissing. The injured victims were taken to Reading Hospital. Their conditions were not immediately known.
The snow squall caused whiteout conditions on the road, the chief said.
Wyomissing resident Kim Hart, who drove by the crash, said road visibility quickly diminished when the squall moved through the area.
