The town of Hell in Michigan officially froze over on Thursday (local time) as the US battled through a blistering blast of Arctic air that has broken records and caused at least 12 deaths.

The community 95 kilometres west of Detroit dropped to minus 26 degrees Celcius overnight and the nearby University of Michigan took the rare step of cancelling classes.

The so-called polar vortex spread eastward on Thursday, bringing frigid misery to the Northeast.

It caused airline gas lines to freeze and electrical grids to collapse, and kept much of the northern US homebound. Power outages roiled swathes of Wisconsin and Iowa, plunging thousands into a brief, unheated darkness. The dry, frigid air froze exposed water instantly, led to spontaneous nosebleeds, and made even brief forays outdoors extremely hazardous.