Severely cold wind chills persisted in the Rockies, Great Plains, and Midwest on Tuesday, with temperatures plummeting below minus 30 degrees (-34.4 C) in various central U.S. regions.
Late Monday, approximately 110,000 homes and businesses were without power, mainly in Oregon, following widespread outages since Saturday. Portland General Electric cautioned that freezing rain on Tuesday might impede restoration efforts, prompting transportation officials to advise against travel due to hazardous icy roads that could lead to tree and power line disruptions.
Tuesday’s classes were canceled in major cities like Portland, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, and Fort Worth—impacting the fourth-largest public school district in the U.S. The severe weather affected air travel, NFL playoffs, Iowa’s caucuses, and unfortunately led to several fatalities nationwide.
In the Portland area alone, at least four people died, two from suspected hypothermia, one due to a fallen tree on a house, and another in a fire triggered by a tree falling on an RV. In Wisconsin, the deaths of three homeless individuals in the Milwaukee area were being investigated, with hypothermia as the likely cause.
Freezing rain and sleet were expected to persist in parts of the Southeast into Tuesday morning, leading to winter storm warnings in various southern states. Temperatures dropped as low as 10 degrees (-12.2 C) in Mississippi and Tennessee on Monday night.
Despite the freezing temperatures, fans turned out to support the Buffalo Bills in a snow-covered stadium in Orchard Park, New York, where the AFC wild-card playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers was delayed due to a snowstorm.
Former President Donald Trump secured a victory in the Iowa caucuses, held on the coldest night on record, with temperatures plunging to minus 3 degrees (-19.4 C) in Des Moines, exacerbated by wind chill.
Air travel disruptions were widespread, with about 2,900 cancellations reported by FlightAware on Monday in the United States. Although temperatures are expected to moderate midweek, a new surge of colder air is predicted to sweep across the Northern Plains and Midwest, reaching the Deep South by the week’s end.
