Dangerously cold weather that has gripped more than half of the US is spreading east towards New York and Washington DC with temperatures set to plummet by as much as 45 degrees in the next 24 hours.
The cold snap descended at the start of the week pummelling states from Montana to Maryland and grounding thousands of flights with a whirlpool of frigid, dense air, not seen in two decades.
Record low temperatures have been set across the nation with Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport seeing a record low of -26C yesterday morning, beating the previous record of -25 set in 1988.
About half of the US population has been placed under a wind chill warning or advisory and today people on the US north-east coast were warned to prepare themselves for the cold front sweeping in from the Midwest.
The sub-zero snap was expected to reach as far south as Texas and central Florida, the National Weather Service said.
Tennessee and Kentucky were forecast to receive several inches of snow.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that parts of major highways would be closed in preparation for the extreme weather, which could see the mercury plummet to -26C today with wind chill.
