Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
A DEADLY CHILL still has much of the United States and Canada in its wintry grip, as the record-breaking cold snap brings temperatures lower than on the surface of Mars.
Authorities have opened shelters for the homeless and anyone else who needed a warm place, and have reported at least 21 cold-related deaths across the country since Sunday, including seven in Illinois, and six in Indiana.
At least five people died after collapsing while shoveling snow, while several victims were identified as homeless people who either refused shelter or didn’t make it to a warm haven soon enough to save themselves from the bitter temperatures.
In Missouri on Monday, a 1-year-old boy was killed when the car he was riding in struck a snow plough, and a 20-year-old woman was killed in a separate crash after her car slid on ice and into the path of a tractor-trailer.
Polar bear
It was so cold in Chicago that the polar bear at the Lincoln Park zoo was brought inside to warm up, and she had not built up the winter fat stores of her wild cousins.
In Kentucky, an escaped inmate begged to be let back into prison so he could warm up after spending the night shivering in an abandoned house.
All of Canada and all the US states bar tropical Hawaii recorded temperatures below freezing on Tuesday, even usually sunny and warm Florida and California.
But the most dangerous cold, that can cause frostbite in a minute and death in a matter of hours, hit the Midwest as the ‘polar vortex’ brought frigid air from the Arctic.
A homeless man who wanted to be identified as John, tries to stay warm on a steam grate in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Schools, businesses and government offices were closed. Water mains and household pipes froze. Airplanes were grounded, trains were halted and roads and sidewalks became ice rinks.
The town of Embarrass, Minnesota, recorded the lowest temperature in the United States yesterday at a frigid -37 Celsius.
Factoring into wind chill, temperatures dipped as low as -52 Celsius in Montana and was in the -40 to -50 Celsius range in parts of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
That’s cold enough to toss a cup of boiling water into the air and watch it turn into snow before it hits the ground.
Colder than Mars
The Mars Rover has been sending back daily temperature readings from its tour of the Red Planet ranging from -25 to -31 degrees Celsius.
“To be fair, though, Mars is still way colder,” the Smithsonian Institute wrote in a blog post.
The Curiosity rover is driving around in a crater at, roughly, the equivalent latitude of Venezuela.
But then again, Mars is 78 million miles further away from the Sun.
For a more Earthly comparison, the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station recorded a temperature of -23 Celsius and a wind chill factor of -35 Celsius on Tuesday.
Brutal chill
The brutal chill came as people in the Great Lakes region were still digging out from two massive snow storms which dumped more than two feet of snow.
More than 500 people spent Monday night stuck on a train that was stranded by snowdrifts on the line between Detroit and Chicago, while nearly 2,500 flights were cancelled in the United States on Tuesday and 3,400 were delayed.
That brought the total of flights cancelled since the latest snowstorm hit on Thursday to more than 18,000.
Toronto’s Pearson Airport temporarily halted ground operations early Tuesday because of “equipment freezing” and out of concern for the safety of airport personnel, it said on its Twitter account.
Police reinforcements were called in to the airport to deal with rising tension among stranded travellers.
The governor of Illinois declared a state of emergency Monday and called up the National Guard to help rescue stranded motorists as high winds whipped up blinding snow.
Guardsmen were also deployed in Indiana and New York, a Pentagon spokesman told AFP.
Even hardy Canadians were complaining of the cold amid widespread power outages.
Meteorologists predict the cold snap will ease of Wednesday.
Source: AP Photo/David Tulis" title="">
Source: AP Photo/The Lafayette Daily Advertiser, Leslie Westbrook" title="">
Source: AP Photo/Kalamazoo Gazette-MLive Media Group, Mark Bugnaski" title="">
Source: AP Photo/The Herald-Palladium, Don Campbell" title="">
Source: AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Laurie Skrivan" title="">
Source: AP Photo/The Telegraph, John Badman" title="">
Source: AP Photo/ Evan Vucci" title="">Additional reporting Associated Press
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Dennis Quaid has predicted this for years!!!
Should be president that man
You can’t beat a frozen Mars.
Smellington
Most Midwesterns take such extreme weather in stride.
I have fond memories of the days during my youth when extreme cold would cause challenges.
It the schools and offices where opened… We found a way to get there. And when we arrived…. We often found rules and the day very relaxed…. Longer breaks, less work, more free time for club activities: yearbook, theater, language, school newspaper.
This weather often brought on a festive mode.
Right on Marlon!
I love the terms used in the article like “two huge snowstorms totaling more than 2 feet of snow”! I’m in New England and one “big” snowstorm would total 2-3 feet! I guess the media has forgotten that we average over 100 inches of snow each winter. Apparently the media is renaming the annual “Montreal Express” too. We get the “Express” nearly every winter where temps drop well below freezing for 1-3 weeks in January or February. I guess “Polar Vortex” sounds scarier to the masses and plays up the alarmists global warming screed…
I’ve learned that the term “Polar Vortex” has indeed been used previously. It was back in 1974 when Time Magazine (currently at the forefront of the global warming craze) said in an article that the Polar Vortex of that time was proof of the coming Ice Age!
Little do they know that they were closer to the truth in 1974 than they are now!
Brian I understand your having the views you do if you live in the USA, since media reporting on climate change is greatly biased there…
http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/10/10/study-media-sowed-doubt-in-coverage-of-un-clima/196387
But you still surely are capable of engaging with the actual scientific evidence yourself. If you had you could never be so scathing about the consensus of experts the world over on global warming, based on observations and hard evidence. What on earth makes you think you know better, especially when there is no scientific evidence on your side of the argument?
Could you engage with the actual science in the IPCC report, and give links to peer-reviewed papers by real climate scientists or other earth scientists that debunk that evidence? Can you say why you might impugn the qualifications of the more than 800 authors and reviewers listed here or why you might know better than them? http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/ar5_authors_review_editors_updated.pdf
To whom do you look for information on climate science, may I ask?
Or tell us if you subscribe to the conspiracy theory that all of the thousands of climate and other earth scientists, universities and national scientific institutes of the world all conspired to fake their considerable evidence for AGW?
People rubbishing the established science without any proof is really a problem for all of us who do not want to see our children’s future screwed up beyond repair.
When you say about the polar vortex, what about it – do you mean the mere fact that it was mentioned then and that it is mentioned then???!!! It is what somebody is saying ABOUT the polar vortex that is relevant, not the mere mention of it!!! Are you saying it does not exist at all?
I don’t care what Time magazine ever said. I look to the actual real evidence from people who know what they are talking about. There was some cooling at that time, but it was due to aerosols. The vast majority of climate scientists at that time were continuing however to predict further warming.
The last decade is the hottest globally on record. That is beyond dispute. The Australian Meteorological Society say on their website that 2013 was the hottest year in Australia since records began. You simply cannot fly in the face of scientific facts. Why do you want to? What is the fear if you do accept the fact of global warming? I would genuinely like to know.
Hello Miss…
I’ve responded to you previously with this…
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/11-01-2009/106922-earth_ice_age-0
(or simply google english, pravda, ice age)
Looking at the history of the planet (paleoclimatology) rather than the last 100 or 1000 years leads many of us to different conclusions. Again, I don’t disagree that the planet is warming…I disagree that the temperature rise is alarming or that man is the major cause. I also don’t see where spending billions of taxpayer dollars/euros will change anything. The Sun and the earth’s wobble have much more to do with global warming and ice ages than anything else. Putting up windmills and creating economic hardship/havoc isn’t going tpo change that…
Your statement about the consesus of experts is also problematic. Simply denying that opposition is credible doesn’t make you correct. In fact it would put you in a position similar to the “flat earthers” who denied skeptics because the science was settled in their opinion. For structural reasons alone, we can’t compete. Generating fear amongst the masses has allowed the environmental movement to harness government grant money. In order to keep that gravy train rolling…more and continued fear mongering is required. The environmental movement is now highly organized…even creating the Climate Action Network to tie everyone involved together. There are actual meetings to tell everyone involved what the current “party line” will be. Skeptics tend to be scattered across disciplines and continents. They’re not unified and they’re not supported by sympathetic media and politicians. Their message doesn’t get out…
The IPCC is a political outfit not a scientific one and the research submitted to it is censored by WWF, Greenpeace and other activist groups who have wormed their way into it. It is the trojan horse by which progressives [read middle-class marxists] are trying very hard to implement Agenda 21.
Miss,
Regarding the Polar Vortex…it’s simply not a term used here in the US. We tend to name our weather patterns based on geographical locations and local preferences. Hence, here in the Northeast when the Arctic chill rolls in we call it The Montreal Express. My comment was meant to imply that the term Polar Vortex has been drug up by the enviro-sympathetic media because it sounds more dramatic, Anything to continue to scare the masses and enflame the alarmists!
Miss,
I have read the IPCC Reort…and while it’s not god-awful, it isn’t unbiased either (as Aunty points out). Problematic is that the IPCC report is largely ignored in favor of the Summary For Policymakers contained within. The IPCC Report demonstrates a significant amount of doubt among scientists, while the Summary excludes any mention of conflict. It’s that Summary that politicians, media and enviro-whackos pay attention to. Furthermore, government representatives have the final say on the Summary…therefore it’s nothing more than political tool. It’s garbage, but that what governments are using to set policy. How “F’d up is that?
You guys are deluded if you cannot see a) the IPCC process is open and transparent and has been independently audited b) governments around the world nominate scientists to the process c) there are more than 800 authors and reviews of the report who are highly esteemed and at the top of their field in all of the relevant scientific disciplines, from universities and scientific institutes around the world and d) their consensus is absolutely clear.
The statement that the output of the IPCC is censored by WWF and Greenpeace is absolutely ludicrous! IPCC processes are among the most open and scrutinised on the planet: http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_procedures.shtml#.Us6tR2RdUr4
IPCC reports are prepared by experts selected based on nominations by governments and observer organisations who serve as IPCC Lead Authors. Over 830 authors were involved in preparing AR5. Look again at the list of authors and reviewers here: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/ar5_authors_review_editors_updated.pdf
If you google information on them you will see that they are professors and top experts from universities and institutes around the whole world. It is utterly ludicrous to suggest that the WWF and Greenpeace have any control over this process!!!
Well Brian, we only have your view that many of the papers included in the IPCC process cast doubt on manmade global warming! The fact is that the highly qualified 800+ authors and reviewers, the lead authors, universities, national scientific institutes, governments of the world do not, from their reading of all of the papers in the repot, come to the same conclusions as yourself – they come to the opposite conclusion!
To say so many thousands of people from so many different disciplines – governments, scientists, national scientific institutions, are all in cahoots and acting politically is just silly.
What evidence do you have for your conspiracy theories?
Aunty, so to say that the IPCC is a political organisation is an insult to the thousands of scientists from around the world that make up its work. It is also patently untrue. They have bent over backwards to be open and transparent, to present all their evidence for peer-review, and even to have their processes all independently overseen. They have had to do this in face of an onslaught of criticism and mud-slinging by oil-funded interests – they are the ones who have really corrupted the process and shame on them for doing so – the new film Greedy Lying B**tards (that exposes the extent of their dirty dealings to undermine the science of climate change) is aptly named.
Brian, you are kidding me! Gregory Fegal in Pravda!!! The stuff he is going on about has long been debunked. It is beyond me why you guys, if you are truly open-minded, are so against the overwhelming scientific consensus but instead just dig up the same few discredited cranks…
Seriously though, there absolutely totally is a scientific consensus on AGW – it seems like a form of madness to deny it or to decry it!
Brian what you say about all those sceptics out there isolated and ignored by the media is wrong… the vast majority of media coverage has disproportionately reported anti-manmade global warming efforts, in direct opposition to the consensus, as this study demonstrates: http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/10/10/study-media-sowed-doubt-in-coverage-of-un-clima/196387
We would expect the conservative US media to report global warming more in line with the Tea Party line, but the same is true of some UK media (the Daily Mail has had to publish quite a few apologies and ‘corrections’ for printing factually wrong articles on global warming – but those original articles are still being circulated by the conservative media).
I do not deny that opposition is credible. Science has rigorous procedures whereby research is scrutinised by peers in the field for accuracy. If there are peer-reviewed studies carried out by people with expertise in the field that are agreed by their fellow experts to be true, then they will be published and taken account of.
The simple fact is that studies of all peer-reviewed papers from suitably qualified professionals that look at global warming and climate change shows that the vast majority support the view that manmade global warming from CO2 emissions is true. Since experts working in field accept this – and who better than such qualified people to review and check the evidence in all of the papers studied than them – you would need to have some very compelling evidence that those studies were falsified… http://theconsensusproject.com/
It is also a fact that the vast majority of experts who might know anything about climate change (including experts in the field of meteorology, paleoclimatology, geology, astronomy, geophysics, physics, agronomy, biology, marine sciences, oceanography, engineering, marine engineering, atmospheric research, anthropology) all agree with the scientific consensus. They do this because of the evidence. This evidence is freely available for anybody to critique.
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus
http://opr.ca.gov/s_listoforganizations.php
Brian what you say about all those sceptics out there isolated and ignored by the media is wrong… the vast majority of media coverage has disproportionately reported anti-manmade global warming efforts, in direct opposition to the consensus, as this study demonstrates: http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/10/10/study-media-sowed-doubt-in-coverage-of-un-clima/196387
We would expect the conservative US media to report global warming more in line with the Tea Party line, but the same is true of some UK media (the Daily Mail has had to publish quite a few apologies and ‘corrections’ for printing factually wrong articles on global warming – but those original articles are still being circulated by the conservative media).
I do not deny that opposition is credible. Science has rigorous procedures whereby research is scrutinised by peers in the field for accuracy. If there are peer-reviewed studies carried out by people with expertise in the field that are agreed by their fellow experts to be true, then they will be published and taken account of.
The simple fact is that studies of all peer-reviewed papers from suitably qualified professionals that look at global warming and climate change shows that the vast majority support the view that manmade global warming from CO2 emissions is true. Since experts working in field accept this – and who better than such qualified people to review and check the evidence in all of the papers studied than them – you would need to have some very compelling evidence that those studies were falsified… look at The Consensus Project online.
It is also a fact that the vast majority of experts who might know anything about climate change (including experts in the field of meteorology, paleoclimatology, geology, astronomy, geophysics, physics, agronomy, biology, marine sciences, oceanography, engineering, marine engineering, atmospheric research, anthropology) all agree with the scientific consensus. They do this because of the evidence. This evidence is freely available for anybody to critique.
Hi guys, I’m glad to see sources being used in this debate, but just a small reminder that if you use more than 3 links in a comment, there may be a delay in it being published.
Not trying to discourage you or anything, but just to let you know in case you see it happening.
Bad headlines can lead to talking out of Uranus
Wat channel does the weather forecast for mars??
Lots of them, it’s a craze at the moment to compare Mars etc to the Earth
Which part of Mars? Temperatures fluctuate from -150c at the poles to +20c at the equator. Interesting fact I got on BBC stargazing last night (it’s running for two more nights for those interested!)
The area on Mars where that new NASA rover is tootling around is warmer than much of the American Midwest right now.
Good man, missed last nights one but managed to get it recorded. It’s a great show!
The equator on Mars? Where it’s a balmy -25 to -31°Celsius!
Awful weather they’re having in the US and Canada. Thoughts go out to the families of those who died.
At last the Irish media are using the term “coldsnap” correctly and not for the little bit of frost or ice that we normally get.
So are we still saying that using the wrong light bulbs is causing global warming?
Who ever said that?
The green party
Should the earthly comparison be made with the North Pole instead as it is ‘Summer’ in the South Pole?
I bet this is because the banned God from the weather stations.. Was only a matter of time :P
We hope this is not the beginning of further climate change disruptions… Only time will tell.
If you’re looking to do your bit against climate change in Ireland, check out when your electricity is greenest on http://www.EnergyElephant.com. It’s a free service for all Irish users.
Green electricity is a farce and costs money and lives. Heating or eating is a choice faced by many as a result of the scam.
Thanks Aunty…
Some people just never give up!
Green electricity is not a farce Aunty. People on benefits and on Fuel Allowance can get their house insulated for free under the Government’s Better Energy Warmer Homes scheme btw. Are you trying also to suggest that green energy is more expensive than convention more polluting fossil fuel energy here, because it is not.
When you say scam, who is perpetrating this scam, and to what ends?
-7 in Hawaii
Hurray for geo engineering thank f*** it’s not going on here, oh wait…..
My aunty lives in America and they cant even leave the house. I feel so sorry for the homeless people living their hope they are all safe and in a shelther couldn’t imagine been out in that weather.
Only 21?
I’m sure when the cold & snows subside that number will rise.
That’s nothing, I went fishing in sub zero temperatures, slept beside the lake on the ground. Woke up and me head was stuck to ground. Great I am
Durka3, That’s a really insightful comment. Generalisations are usually stupid……yours certainly is. Some years ago we had a neighbour who had never smoked, drank very little alcohol, ate very healthily, walked everywhere and played various sports. He was also very trim and looked after himself. Died of a heart attack at age 41. Great lifestyle but genetically pre-disposed to coronary problems.
You have no idea what caused the death of this folks.
RIP. My thoughts and prayers are with your neighbour and his family and friends at this difficult time.
How could anyone red thumb this comment??? Shame on you all!
@sswipe !
Mitch,
You did note of course that most died in car accidents, or heart attacks while shoveling snow. These things happen every year in winter here. It’s sad, but it’s common. Regarding the homeless, police, fire and rescue make every possible effort to find and bring in the homeless to local shelters or public buildings in these conditions. Sometimes though, these people either don’t want to be found or simply refuse to move inside.
Is it still there ?
Which part of Mars though??
The chocolate bit …….
I heard this comparison yesterday In a podcast. Someone said it how it may feel on mars if it were mars’s warmest day and somewhere on ye equator.
The frozen trampoline jump contsins a virus. Please remove it from the page
Hi Povl, could I get you to explain this a little bit more? Are you receiving a warning of some kind about the page by your anti-virus software?
Worked for me just fine
Any wants ruby on rail website ?
have your say