Thread: Extreme temperatures colder than Antarctica grip parts of the US

US counts the cost as polar vortex retreats, with temperatures to rise by 30C



Dangerous freezing conditions that hit the northern US this week have retreated, but not before exacting a human toll: more than two dozen weather-related deaths in eight states, and hundreds of injuries, including frostbite, broken bones and heart attacks.

Key points:

• Temperatures will become "spring-like", according to weather experts
• There are concerns the rapid shift could lead to bursting pipes, flooding rivers and crumbling roads
• Meteorologists linked the brutal cold to a cap of icy air that usually swirls over the North Pole

Twenty-six people are known to have died from weather-related causes, including a motorist who died during a snowstorm on Friday and others who died in unheated homes or while shovelling snow.

In Illinois alone, hospitals reported more than 220 cases of frostbite and hypothermia since Tuesday, with overnight temperatures in affected areas plunging to -34 degrees Celsius or lower, sending the wind chill down to -45C or worse in some places.

"I definitely saw more frostbite than I've ever seen in my entire career just in the last three days," Andrea Rowland-Fischer, an emergency department physician working in Minneapolis, said.