The deadly polar vortex wreaking havoc across the US has left at least 12 people dead, including college student, Gerald Belz, 18, who was found in the freezing cold on the campus of the University of Iowa
The deadly polar vortex wreaking havoc across the United States has left at least 12 people dead, including a college student who was found in the freezing cold on the campus of the University of Iowa.
Authorities said the body of Gerald Belz was found behind an academic hall just before 3am on Wednesday by campus police.
The 18-year-old was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. While officials believe his death was related to dangerously low temperatures at the time he was found, officials have not given a specific cause of death.
The National Weather Service (NWS) says the wind chill around 3am was negative 51F degrees.
Belz's family said their son was studying pre-med and that he had just graduated last May from Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School.
His family told KCRG that doctors did not find alcohol in his system.
The polar vortex in the Midwest has brought record-breaking low temperatures across the Midwest, halted postal services in five states and canceled more than 2,600 flights.
Two people died in Detroit, Michigan, after temperatures started plummeting late Tuesday as forecasters issued grave warnings that one of the coldest spells in history would be life-threatening.
Police found a man's body across the street from his home in the Detroit area on Wednesday. He was not wearing a hat or gloves and wasn't dressed for below-zero temperatures. A 70-year-old man was also found dead in Detroit in front of a neighbor's home on Wednesday.
An 82-year-old central Illinois man died in the cold weather after authorities say he was found several hours after he fell trying to get into his home.
Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood said a neighbor found the Marquette Heights man Tuesday afternoon.
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Authorities said Belz was found behind an academic hall just before 3am on Wednesday by campus police. The 18-year-old was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Belz's family (right) said their son was studying pre-med and that he had just graduated last May from Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School
The polar vortex in the Midwest has brought record-breaking low temperatures across the Midwest, halted postal services in five states and canceled more than 2,600 flights. Lake Michigan (above) bacame a huge mass of ice.
The polar vortex came on the heels of major Winter Storm Jayden that dumped up to a foot of snow on the region over the weekend and was to blame for at least five deaths. This driver in Milwaukee has the tough task of digging his car out of the snow.
Workers shovel at the entrance to City Hall in whiteout conditions during a winter storm in Buffalo, New York, on Wednesday
A total of 1,359 flights are cancelled for Thursday, but conditions are expected to improve heading into the weekend
The neighbor called 911. Harwood says his office was called to a Peoria hospital, where the man was pronounced dead later Tuesday.
The man's cause of death was related to cold exposure. He wasn't immediately identified pending notification of family.
A 55-year-old man froze to death in his Milwaukee garage after he collapsed shoveling snow, a man was fatally struck by a snow plow in Chicago, a nine-year-old died in an Iowa pile up and a young couple were killed when their SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana.
Illinois State Police officers rescued 21 people who were stranded in a charter bus that broke down in sub-zero temperatures along Interstate 55 near Auburn after the vehicle's diesel fuel turned to gel in its engine.
The polar vortex came on the heels of major Winter Storm Jayden that dumped up to a foot of snow on the region over the weekend and was to blame for at least five deaths.
Officials have warned that the freezing temperatures will only become more life-threatening overnight on Wednesday.
Forecasters advised against breathing deeply or talking while outside and warned that frostbite and hypothermia issues could occur within seconds.
Temperatures plunged to as low as minus 42F in Park Rapids, Minnesota, minus 31F in Fargo, North Dakota and minus 27F in Minneapolis.
In Chicago, temperatures were still dropping after plunging early Wednesday to minus 19F, breaking the day's previous record low set in 1966. Wind chills in northern Illinois made it feel as cold as negative 57F.
Record-breaking low temperatures causes ice to cover the Chicago River (pictured) on Wednesday
Firefighters at the scene of a house fire on Wednesday in St Paul, Minnesota, as temperatures plunged across the Midwest
Ice flows down the Allegheny River toward the Ohio River in Pittsburgh on Wednesday as dangerously low wind chills closed many area schools and government offices
A satellite image of the continental United States shows the extreme cold weather phenomenon called the polar vortex over the US Midwest and Great Lakes regions on Wednesday afternoon
In comparison, temperatures in parts of the Midwest were lower Wednesday than in Antarctica, where the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station hit negative 25F.
The extreme weather conditions headed for the East Coast as it triggered widespread closures of hundreds of schools and businesses from North Dakota to Pennsylvania along the way.
New Yorkers experienced a sudden snowstorm Wednesday afternoon. Forecasters are expecting temperatures to drop to near 5 degrees in the Big Apple on Thursday morning. The wind chill then will be between -10 and -20.
The MTA says they will more than likely activate warming devices throughout their system to keep switches warm on all Long Island Rail Road and Metro North Railroad lines.
LIRR stations will also keep waiting rooms open 24 hours a day Wednesday through Saturday, according to CBS.
In New Jersey, Gov Phil Murphy is warning residents to plan for icy roads and potential blackouts.
Forecasters in western New York are warning of blizzard-like conditions over the next few days with up to two feet of snow, plummeting temperatures and wind chills that can cause frostbite within minutes.
In advance of the Great Lakes-fed storm, authorities closed schools in Buffalo and surrounding districts for Wednesday and Thursday and the state announced a ban on tractor-trailers and buses from the New York State Thruway.
The ban between Rochester and the Pennsylvania border took effect at 8pm Tuesday.
A cold emergency was declared in Washington, DC, with additional services put on for the homeless. In Atlanta, some 300 flights were canceled Tuesday.
Amtrak also axed all trains into and out of Chicago on Wednesday and most services to or from Chicago on Thursday. Crews had to set rail tracks on fire to keeps trains moving smoothly on Tuesday.
More than 2,500 flights were canceled early Wednesday, largely out of Chicago O'Hare and Chicago Midway international airports, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.
The US Postal Service also took the rare step of suspending mail delivery to parts of Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, the Dakotas and Nebraska on Wednesday because of the dangerous Arctic blast.
The James Versluis breaks ice on the frozen Chicago River on Wednesday in Chicago
People walk along Lake Michigan's frozen shoreline as temperatures dropped to -20F on Wednesday in Chicago
Ice and snow builds up along Lake Michigan in Chicago on Wednesday as the Midwest is gripped by one of the coldest spells in history
Ice forms along the shore of Lake Michigan before sunrise on Wednesday as record-breaking temperatures hit
Ice and snow builds up along Lake Michigan in Chicago as temperatures plunged to record lows on Wednesday
Ice is seen on the side of the Great Falls National Historic Park as a couple takes in the sights during a frigid winter day in Paterson, New Jersey, on Wednesday
Drivers navigate their way through downtown St. Joseph, Michigan, on Wednesday as temperatures reached minus 40F
A warning sign is covered by ice at Clark Square park in Evanston, Illinois, as a deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest
A firefighter walks past an ice-encrusted home after an early morning house fire on Wednesday in St. Paul, Minnesota
Ice floats down the Missouri River in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday where wind chill warnings were issued
The National Weather Service forecast for Wednesday night predicted temperatures in Chicago as low as minus 28F, with wind chills to minus 50F. Detroit's outlook was for Wednesday overnight lows around minus 15F, with wind chills dropping to minus 40F.
Governors in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan all declared emergencies as the worst of the cold threatened on Wednesday.
'We need everyone to do your part and make sure you and your families are prepared,' said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
The bitter cold is the result of a split in the polar vortex that allowed temperatures to plunge much further south in North America than normal.
'These are actually a public health risk and you need to treat it appropriately,' Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday. 'They are life-threatening conditions and temperatures.'
Officials in large Midwestern cities including Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit have been desperately trying to get the homeless off the streets.
Minneapolis charitable groups that operate warming places and shelters expanded hours and capacity, and ambulance crews handled all outside calls as being potentially life-threatening, according to Hennepin County Emergency Management Director Eric Waage.
MetroTransit said it wouldn't remove people from buses if they were riding them simply to stay warm, and weren't being disruptive.
Emanuel said Chicago was turning five buses into makeshift warming centers moving around the city, some with nurses aboard, to encourage the homeless to come in from the cold. About 160 warming centers were opened in the city.
'We're bringing the warming shelters to them, so they can stay near all of their stuff and still warm up,' said Cristina Villarreal, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Family and Support Services.
Shelters, churches and city departments in Detroit worked together to help get vulnerable people out of the cold, offering the message to those who refused help that 'you're going to freeze or lose a limb,' said Terra DeFoe, a senior adviser to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.
Nineteen-year-old Deontai Jordan and dozens of others found refuge from the cold in the basement of a church in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
'You come here, you can take a nap, you can snack, you can use the bathroom, you might even be able to shower,' he said.
'And then they're feeding you well. Not to mention they give out clothes, they give out shoes, they give out socks.'
Hundreds of public schools and several large universities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania canceled classes on Tuesday and Wednesday. Those classes will also remain closed on Thursday.
Closing schools for an extended stretch isn't an easy decision, even though most school districts build potential makeup days into their schedules, said Josh Collins, spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Education.
'Many students, they might have two working parents, so staying home might mean they're not supervised,' he said. 'For some low-income students, the lunch they receive at school might be their most nutritious meal of the day.'
American Indian tribes in the Upper Midwest were doing what they could to help members in need with heating supplies. Many people on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas live in housing that's decades old and in disrepair, or in emergency government housing left over from southern disasters such as hurricanes.
'They aren't made for this (northern) country. The cold just goes right through them,' said Elliott Ward, the tribe's emergency response manager.
The extreme cold was 'a scary situation' for the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, said Chris Fairbanks, manager of the northern Minnesota tribe's energy assistance program.
Nichole Mazola, 30, walks south on Sassafras Street near West 16th Street in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday
First responders evacuate a person, found in sub-freezing temperatures, on the banks of Carter Lake in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday
A man tosses hot water into the freezing cold air by Lake Michigan in Chicago on Wednesday
The National Weather service says the temperature in Chicago (pictured is the Chicago River) dropped early Wednesday to minus 19 degrees, which breaks the previous record low for the day that was set in 1966
The frozen Arctic winds brought record-low temperatures across much of the Midwest on Wednesday. Pictured above is Lake Michigan in Chicago on Wednesday
Ice covers the Chicago River on Wednesday as the city copes with record-setting low temperatures
A man moves his luggage through the snow covered streets in Buffalo, New York, on Wednesday
Pedestrians bundle up in sub-freezing temperatures on Wednesday on the University of Nebraska-Omaha campus
'We have many, many calls coming in. We're just swamped trying to get everybody what they need,' she said.
The cold weather was even affecting beer deliveries, with a pair of western Wisconsin distributors saying they would delay or suspend shipments for fear that beer would freeze in their trucks.
The unusually frigid weather is attributed to a sudden warming far above the North Pole. A blast of warm air from misplaced Moroccan heat last month made the normally super chilly air temperatures above the North Pole rapidly increase.
That split the polar vortex into pieces, which then started to wander, said Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research.
One of those polar vortex pieces is responsible for the subzero temperatures across the Midwest this week.
Minnesota's Xcel Energy reported that equipment failures on power poles has led to outages throughout the Twin Cities.
The NWS Twin Cities reported that the area experienced the coldest temperatures since 1996.
'These are VERY DANGEROUS conditions and can lead to frostbite on exposed skin in as little as five minutes where wind chill values are below -50,' the NWS tweeted. 'Best thing you can do is limit your time outside.'
A wind chill of minus 25F can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the service.
Drifting snow obscures a road near Mount Joy in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday
City crews clear sidewalks in empty downtown St. Joseph, Michigan, after a winter storm brought several inches of snow and subzero temperatures to the area
Dozens of cars were involved in a chain-reaction crash on a central Pennsylvania highway after a snow squall caused whiteout conditions on Wednesday
About 30 cars were involved in the crash on Route 222 near Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, and numerous ambulances were on the scene
Pictured above is a view of Lake Michigan from Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Wednesday as a large swath of the Midwest is experiencing some of the worst cold weather conditions in decades
Pigeons huddle together in the snow during a winter storm in Buffalo, New York, on Wednesday
Geese huddle in the waters as the sun rises in the harbor in Port Washington, Wisconsin, on Wednesday morning
A lone pedestrian crosses the Chicago River early Wednesday as a deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking temperatures
Temperatures in almost a dozen states stretching more than 1,200 miles from the Dakotas to Ohio were forecast to be the coldest in a generation, if not on record.
'One of the coldest arctic air mass intrusions in recent memory is surging south into the Upper Midwest before spreading across much of the eastern two-thirds of the country,' the NWS said.
WHAT IS THE POLAR VORTEX?
The polar vortex is an atmospheric circulation pattern that sits high above the poles, in a layer of the atmosphere called the stratosphere.
This structure can weaken as a result of abnormal warming in the poles, causing it to split off into smaller ‘sister vortices’ that may travel outside of their typical range.
The split higher up in the atmosphere could eventually cause a similar phenomenon to ‘drip’ down to the troposphere – the layer of the atmosphere closest to the surface, where most of our weather takes place.
A split in the polar vortex can give rise to both sudden and delayed effects, much of which involves declining temperatures and extreme winter weather in the Eastern US along with Northern and Western Europe.
'Expect frigid temperatures, bitterly cold and life-threatening wind chills, likely leading to widespread record lows and low maximum temperatures from the Upper Midwest to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.'
The NWS forecast temperatures between -10 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit by Wednesday across the Midwest, with wind chills making it seem as cold as -65 degrees Fahrenheit in one area of Minnesota.
Scientists say climate change is causing more extreme weather, and one theory for polar vortex chills is that arctic air currents usually trapped around the North Pole are weakened and dislodged by a warming climate.
President Donald Trump used the occasion to again voice skepticism about climate change, tweeting: 'What the hell is going on with Global Waming? (sic) Please come back fast, we need you!'
But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates NWS, tweeted: 'Winter storms don't prove that global warming isn't happening.'
The NOAA also linked to a 2015 explanatory article in their tweet.
The painfully cold weather system is expected to ease Thursday, though temperatures could still tumble to record lows in some places before the region begins to thaw out.
Disruptions caused by the cold will persist, too, including power outages and canceled flights and trains.
Crews in Detroit will need days to repair water mains that burst Wednesday, and other pipes can still burst in persistent subzero temperatures.
Before the worst of the cold begins to lift, the NWS said Chicago could hit lows early Thursday that break the city's record of minus 27F set on January 20, 1985.
Some nearby isolated areas could see temperatures as low as minus 40F. That would break the Illinois record of minus 36F, set in Congerville on January 5, 1999.
As temperatures bounce back into the single digits Thursday and into the comparative balmy 20s by Friday, more people were expected to return to work.
Dash cam footage shows the poor visibility in Graceville, Minnesota, where the street signs can barely be made out on roads
A Merl's Towing Service truck pulls a semi-trailer truck out of the snow along M-6 near exit 1 near Grandville, Michigan
Dashcam footage from a trucker taken outside Grand Rapids, Michigan, gave a snapshot of hair-raising driving conditions. 'I about just got caught in a giant wreck; cars are into other pickups, there's people hurt. I gotta let you go.' Jason Coffelt said as his truck was forced off the highway
A ride sharing car waits for a passenger as a woman pushes a stroller during winter squall in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday
A sudden snowstorm in New York on Wednesday afternoon had pedestrians shielding themselves on the streets
Snow falls as a man inspects an overturned pickup truck in Manor Township, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday
Rescue crews use a rope to safely assist an emergency medical technician as he descends down the embankment along Interstate 80 near Mifflinville, Pennsylvania, to assess the driver of a semitrailer who crashed during a snowstorm
A person sleeps at the Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky in Covington, Kentucky, on Wednesday
People sleep in tents near a wooded area adjacent to the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago on Tuesday. Officials throughout the region were focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold, including the homeless, seniors and those living in substandard housing
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The deadly polar vortex wreaking havoc across the US has left at least 12 people dead, including college student, Gerald Belz, 18, who was found in the freezing cold on the campus of the University of Iowa
The deadly polar vortex wreaking havoc across the United States has left at least 12...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca
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