BISMARCK, N.D. (news agencies) — More than 95 million people are facing gripping cold Tuesday as a polar vortex sends temperatures plunging to record levels, closing schools, bursting pipes and forcing communities to set up more temporary shelters for the homeless.
“Some of the coldest temperatures of the entire winter season right now across the central United States,” said Andrew Orrison, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The harsh cold descended on the nation’s midsection Monday on the heels of weekend storms that pummeled the Eastern U.S. killing at least 17 people. Some areas in the Midwest have wind chills as cold as -50 to -60 degrees, Orrison said.
It is so dangerous that hundreds of public school districts canceled classes or switched to online learning Tuesday in Oklahoma, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kansas and Missouri. And in Kansas City, Kansas, dozens of tents were set up in one building to house the homeless.
The biggest batch of record-setting cold temperatures are likely to hit early Thursday and Friday, Orrison said. But North Dakota already felt more like the North Pole on Tuesday as Bismarck hit minus 39, breaking the record of minus 37 (minus 38.3 C) set in 1910 for the same date.
Stephanie Hatzenbuhler’s family has been contending with the cold in many ways on their farm and ranch west of Mandan, North Dakota, from their calving operation, to vehicles and equipment starting, to their coal-fired furnace keeping up.
“There’s always something new to learn and something new to experience. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve done this, so you have to adapt,” said Hatzenbuhler, who called the cold spell “the Siberian experience.”
Conditions were rapidly deteriorating across northeast, east and central Oklahoma as residents in these parts of the state were dealing with freezing rain, ice and snow, according to the National Weather Service.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said US Highway 75 between Tulsa and Okmulgee was shut down in both directions because of the amount of vehicles and semi-tractor trailers that were stuck on the road due to ice.
“Our troopers are working to get salt and sand trucks to the area to treat the roads but it is extremely slick in that area,” the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said in post on X.
In upstate New York, a foot or more of lake-effect snow was expected to fall Tuesday in some areas east of Lake Ontario. The blowing snow created white-out conditions and prompted travel advisories.
Snowfall across the U.S. measured as much as 3 feet (0.91 meters) to 6.5 feet (1.98 meter) in southeastern Wyoming’s Snowy Range, to several inches from South Dakota to Missouri.
In flood-battered Kentucky, the state was bracing for a winter storm that could dump a half-foot or more of snow in some parts of the state, starting Wednesday.
“This is a snowstorm in the middle of a natural disaster,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference Tuesday in Frankfort, the capital city.
The weather-related death toll in Kentucky rose to 14, the governor said, with the two latest fatalities in Jefferson County, which includes Louisville. The two, an adult male and an adult female, were apparently homeless and both appeared to die from hypothermia, he said.
“So that should tell all of us that the weather conditions are as dangerous as that water is,” Beshear said.
Officials in Virginia prepared for up to a foot of snow in the state’s southern region, less than a week after being pummeled with snow, freezing rain and floodwaters.
“If you are not where you want to be by midnight tonight, please don’t go,” Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a news conference on Tuesday.
Youngkin said the National Guard will be deployed across the state, and officials have also stockpiled water and meals for those in need. Local governments will also keep the doors of their homeless shelters open.
In North Carolina, Gov. Josh Stein declared a state of emergency on Tuesday as the National Weather Service forecast the approaching storm could bring up to 9 inches (22.9 centimeters) in far northeastern counties near the Atlantic coast.
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