Record-Setting Cold Hits Eastern U.S.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Bone-Chilling 'Polar Vortex' Hits Eastern U.S.: Brutally Low Temperatures Seen From Deep South Up to New England":

A record-setting cold snap in the Midwest enveloped the eastern half of the country Tuesday, with brutally cold temperatures recorded from the deep South up to New England.

Officials opened warming centers, canceled schools and grappled with strained power grids as shivering residents from the Florida Panhandle to St. Louis to New York cranked up the heat. Train and air travelers suffered continued transportation snarls. The dangerously frigid air sent people to hospitals with frostbite and contributed to multiple deaths, including in Wisconsin, Texas and Ohio, authorities said.

"Nobody is getting out of this one right now," said Bruce Terry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, which expected Tuesday to be the coldest day of the big chill. Temperatures are forecast to begin moderating on Wednesday.

The unusually raw weather is the result of a "polar vortex," a low-pressure system of swirling Arctic-cold air that typically sits in Canada this time of year but has dropped into the Great Lakes region and New England.

While the main result of the shift was bone-chilling temperatures, narrow bands of heavy snow and blizzard conditions pummeled western New York. In the Tug Hill Plateau, a region bordering Lake Ontario, residents braced for the possibility of 80 inches of snow by Wednesday afternoon.