Cities are all but shutting down across the US Midwest as the region shivers through a record-breaking and deadly cold snap known as a “polar vortex”.
At least six people are reported to have been killed across several states as a result of the arctic weather.
Temperatures have dropped as low as -30C in Chicago and -37 in North Dakota.
Freezing weather will chill 250 million Americans, and 90 million will experience -17C or colder temperatures.
Twenty million people in the continental US will experience temperatures of -28C or lower by the week’s end.
Snow is expected to fall throughout today (Wed), from the Great Lakes region into New England.
States of emergency have been declared in Midwestern Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois, and even in the Deep South states of Alabama and Mississippi.
“This could possibly be history-making,” said Ricky Castro, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Illinois.
