2018 has arrived and is off to a bone-chilling start.
Just ask the more than 200 million people in the U.S. currently in the grips of a New Year’s Day deep freeze encompassing almost the entire eastern two-thirds of the country.
The extreme cold was responsible for at least five deaths, as records fell from the Midwest to the Northeast.
In St. Paul, Minnesota, 10 people were taken to the hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning. Authorities said a faulty boiler was likely to blame. All 10 were hospitalized in stable condition, according to ABC affiliate KSTP-TV.
There were wind-chill alerts in effect from Texas to Maine today, with life-threatening wind chills felt from the upper Midwest to northern New England.
Firefighters battled a house fire in Lincoln, Nebraska, in minus 10 degrees as their hoses sprayed water that quickly turned to ice.
Brutal cold, dangerous wind chills on tap for New Year’s Eve and Day for large areas of the US
New Jersey firefighters wade into frozen lake to rescue dog
And in Washington, D.C., firefighters had to use flares to thaw frozen ladders as they tried to tame a two-alarm blaze.
In Chicago, today felt like it was below zero throughout the day and wind chills stuck in the single digits in New York City.
In New York City, the air temperature was 9 degrees at midnight for the ball drop — making it the second-coldest on record and the coldest New Year’s celebration in a century. Wind chills dipped below zero much of the night.
The Deep South has not been spared from the freezing conditions. Temperatures dropped into the teens this morning, making cities like Jackson, Mississippi, feel like they were in the single digits around sunrise.
There were also icy roads in Dallas, Texas, in the last 24 hours and this morning it felt like the temperatures were in the teens in New Orleans, Louisiana.
It will be another frigid morning across much of the country Tuesday, with temperatures feeling like it’s below zero once again from the Midwest to New England.
There will be single-digit wind chills from Denver, Colorado, to Little Rock, Arkansas, and New York City.
And the Southern states will be the same — from Dallas, Texas, and New Orleans to Tallahassee, Florida, residents will also feel like temperatures are in the teens early Tuesday morning.
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