
The deadly arctic deep freeze wreaking havoc across the United States has left at least six people dead with recording-breaking low temperatures halting postal services in the Midwest and cancelling more than 2,500 flights.

Two people died in Detroit, Michigan after temperatures started plummeting late Tuesday as forecasters issued grave warnings that the coldest spell 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.

The polar vortex in the Midwest 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 four deaths - including a 55-year-old man who froze to death in his Milwaukee garage after he collapsed shoveling snow.

Officials have warned that the freezing temperatures will only become more life-threatening as the week progresses. Forecasters advised against breathing deeply or talking while outside and warned that frostbite and hypothermia issues could occur within seconds.

The frozen Arctic winds brought record-low temperatures across much of the Midwest on Wednesday, triggering widespread closures of hundreds of schools and businesses from North Dakota to Pennsylvania.

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Plummeting temperatures in Chicago have forecasters predicting that the city will be colder than parts of Alaska, the North Pole and Antarctica. Pictured above is a frozen walkway at Lake Michigan in Chicago

The sun rises over Lake Michigan in Chicago on Wednesday as a polar vortex sent temperatures plummeting

The James J. Versluis, a 90-foot icebreaker tugboat, breaks ice through Lake Michigan in Chicago on Tuesday. Temperatures are expected drop as low as negative 28 degrees in the city on Wednesday

Temperatures plunged to as low as minus 42F in Park Rapids, Minnesota and minus 31F in Fargo, North Dakota.

Plummeting temperatures in Chicago have forecasters predicting that the city will be colder than parts of Alaska, the North Pole and Antarctica by Wednesday night.

The National Weather service says the temperature in Chicago dropped early Wednesday to minus 19 degrees, which breaks the previous record low for the day that was set in 1966. Temperatures are expected drop as low as negative 28 degrees as the day progresses. Wind chills in northern Illinois made it feel as cold as negative 57F.

In comparison, temperatures are predicted to be in the teens and lows 20s at the US McMurdo Antarctic research station. Temperatures in the North Pole are expected to reach minus 20 degrees and Alaska is forecast to have high in the mid-teens.

The extreme weather conditions have prompted Amtrak to cancel all trains into and out of Chicago on Wednesday and most services to or from Chicago on Thursday. Crews had to set rail tracks in 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 U.S. Postal Service has also taken 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.

Sub-zero temperatures already blanketing parts of Canada began sweeping across the Midwest and towards the East Coast on Tuesday evening.

The frigid winds were bound for the East Coast later on Wednesday into Thursday.

The National Weather Service forecast for Wednesday night predicted temperatures in Chicago as low as minus 28, with wind chills to minus 50. Detroit's outlook was for Wednesday overnight lows around minus 15, with wind chills dropping to minus 40.

Governors in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan have 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.'

The extreme weather conditions have prompted Amtrak to cancel all trains into and out of Chicago on Wednesday and most services to or from Chicago on Thursday. Crews had to set rail tracks in fire to keeps trains moving smoothly on Tuesday

Metra crews are seen clearing ice and snow off the rail tracks in Chicago on Tuesday evening in a bid to keep trains moving. Amtrak has canceled trains in and out of Chicago on Wednesday and most services to or from Chicago on Thursday

At least four deaths were linked to the weather system, including a man struck and killed by a snow plow in the Chicago area, a young couple whose SUV struck another on a snowy road in northern Indiana and a Milwaukee man found frozen to death in a garage.

Officials in large Midwestern cities including Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit were 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. 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.

A man braves the freezing weather as he crosses the street in Chicago. The temperature was reading -28F on Wednesday morning

'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.

'We have many, many calls coming in. We're just swamped trying to get everybody what they need,' she said.

The cold was even shutting down typical outdoor activities. A ski hill in the Minneapolis area said it would close through Wednesday. So did an ice castle attraction.

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.

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

A lone pedestrian crosses the Chicago River early Wednesday as a deadly arctic deep freeze enveloped the Midwest with record-breaking temperatures

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 man moves his luggage through the snow covered streets in Buffalo, New York on Wednesday

Andrea Billings keeps her face covered while walking in subzero temperatures in downtown Rochester, Minnesota on Tuesday

Snow falls as a man inspects an overturned pickup truck in Manor Township, Pennsylvania on Tuesday

Geese huddle in the waters as the sun rises in the harbor in Port Washington, Wisconsin on Wednesday morning

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 outages started around 5.40pm and more than 3,000 people were still without power at 11pm Tuesday evening, according to CBS Minnesota.

The National Weather Service (NWS) Twin Cities reported that the area is experiencing 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 25 can freeze skin within 15 minutes, according to the service.

The NWS have even warned that people should avoid taking deep breaths and talking outside to ensure lungs are protected from the severely cold air.

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.

'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.



In the northeastern and southern US, snow was falling. A cold emergency was declared in Washington, DC, with additional services put on for the homeless.

In Atlanta, some 300 flights were canceled Tuesday.

Rescue crews use a rope to safely assist an emergency medical technician as he descends down the embankment along Interstate 80 near Mifflinville, Pa. to assess the driver of a semitrailer who crashed during a snowstorm

Mats and blankets are seen laid out at the Chattanooga Community Kitchen in Tennessee on Tuesday as authorities across the country are trying to help keep the homeless safe from the cold

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.

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. Advertisement

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.

In New York City, forecasters are expecting temperatures to drop to near 5 degrees 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 in 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.

Drifting bands of lake-effect snow are expected to drop one to two feet by the storm's end. The hard-to-predict bands can bury some areas, even as the sun shines a short distance away.