Posted on 01/04/2014 7:33:23 PM PST by Windflier
Experts have warned that Friday's freezing temperatures were simply a warm-up and that this weekend will bring a big chill for 140 million people - almost half the nation - that could prove fatal for the unprepared - and will continue through the winter.
With the Northeast still reeling from the huge storm that dumped as much as two-feet of snow across the region and was responsible for the deaths of 16 people, a new weather system is threatening to bring record low temperatures to the Midwest as a polar vortex barrels over the United States.
'It's the mother lode of cold air,' said Weather Channel coordinating meteorologist Tom Moore. 'On the heels of what will be the coldest air of the season, will be dangerous, life-threatening winds.'
Because of the winds, 'It may feel as cold as negative 50 to negative 60 on Sunday night over sections of the north-central states,' the National Weather Service said to NBC News. 'In those conditions, frost bite sets in on exposed skin within five minutes.'
Moore said that as the freakishly cold weather hits the region, authorities need to act fast to avoid a human catastrophe because of the chill.
'Anybody living out on the streets needs to be rounded up and put into a shelter,' said Moore to MSNBC News.
'The repercussions ... could be deadly, and I'm afraid we're going to see cases like that.'
The temperature predictions are startling: 25 below zero in Fargo, North Dakota, minus 31 in International Falls, Minnesota, and 15 below in Indianapolis and Chicago.
The so-called 'polar vortex' will send cold air piled up at the North Pole down to the U.S., funneling it as far south as the Gulf Coast.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Hope you’re staying warm, boss. Can’t be too bad in Fresno, but I have seen ice on the ground there before.
Happy New Year!
I lived in Williston for about 3 years when my husband was transferred there. This Texan learned what cold its! LOL!
Those people know cold! OTOH, it was the only place we lived where there was no hot lunch program in the schools. The kids walked home for lunch every day...............The nicest people lived there, and we have stayed friends with several of them.
They’ve had a huge oil boom recently in the Williston area, and I have heard that the population is skyrocketing!
That's why I love Freepers. Their logic is freaking impeccable :-)
“Why is this news in the UK?”
Why is it news here?
It’s January.
.
Glad I am wintering in CA rather than home right now.
Same here. We joke at Algore's expense, but this stuff is no laughing matter for those who are about to bear the brunt of it.
An old friend of mine who works in the logging business out in western Canada once told me that there is nothing more miserable in life than changing the oil in his heavy equipment out in the field when it’s -30 or colder. Holy smokes — I’m freezing cold even just thinking about that.
They are predicting it to get maybe down into the high teens or low 20s here in the Florida Panhandle.
I know, I know, that is nothing to Yankees in Wisconsin or Minnesota but I will have to keep my faucets running to keep the pipes from freezing.
Freakish? Is it really freakish? We’ve had it worse than this. It’s been awhile since it’s been this cold, but I wouldn’t call it freakish. It’s winter in the Midwest.
January it is, but it has not been this cold here in MI in 20 years. Not that common.
Maybe “Sampled” would be more appropriate than “Warm up”!!!!
We’re winning the war on globull warming!
Global warming my frostbitten ass.
I really admire people who live in real snow country. As a native of the Southwest U.S., I’ve never had to endure the sort of ice and snow they regularly contend with.
About the worst winter I ever experienced, was when I lived for a time in southern England. For months, everything was blanketed in a layer of pure white frost. I never even knew what the temperature was because it was always expressed in Celsius. All I knew is that I was freezing my tookis off every day of the week, and it seemed like it would never end.
It gets colder than I like in DFW, but it’s mostly manageable. When it gets lower than 37 degrees outside, we can’t work, but thankfully there aren’t too many of those days.
Like these
http://www.surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm
Actually, “feels like” is the low information voter way of saying “removes heat from a body (of mass above freezing temperature) as fast as that temp with no wind.” It is actually a scientific measure of heat loss.
So at a wind chill of -20, you would lose as much heat (and freeze to death) as fast as at -20 temp with no wind. But at 33 degrees F, no matter the wind chill, ice won’t form.
Just FYI.
Cool site. I set it for Dallas and bookmarked it. Thanks.
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