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 ...
Extreme weather can happen just about anywhere. Toronto usually has pretty mild winters (-5C/23F) but in 1997 we went more than a month where it never went above -15C/5F.
Oops, I meant cold water vs cold air at the same temp.
LOL!
I'm 'older' too, but unfortunately, I don't yet have the luxury of hibernating for the winter. I've still got to get out there and make a buck, even when the weather is kicking my butt.
There are limits, though. In my trade, we can't function when it gets down to freezing. Summer's another story. We just endure it - no matter how hot it gets. Always seems like a distant memory this time of year :-)
No big deal, that was standard in the 70's.
Sadly, I think so. I regularly see folks walking to or from their cars with shorts and t-shirts on when it's practically freezing outside.
I always think to myself: now what will happen to that moron if he winds up in some out of the way place and his car won't start? Or, he locks himself out of his car? Or he runs off the road in the dark? The idiot's going to freeze to death.
That's lovely, but friend, you can keep it .. LOL
We get three to four inches of snow in DFW, and it's all over. The whole region practically comes to a dead stop.
yeah...but we don’t have termites, so there! :{)
I spent 5 years in Western Kansas. One Winter it stayed below zero for 10 straight days, much of it even colder than that.
There had been around 10 inches of snow on the ground and I was curious if it would stay. To my surprise, the wind and whatever began to remove the snow even at 10 below zero. By the end of the 10 days the snow was just left in patches.
They bury the water pipes six feet deep out there but by the 9th and 10th days the lines began freezing up. They had some way of dealing with it and kept them open.
Actually they handled the cold about as well as anyplace I have seen.
If you dress right, even ten below zero is not too bad but you do have to have the right stuff to wear.
We have not seen 8 degrees in the Atlanta area in a good long time. Mr. GG2 is stacking the firewood up on the porch and both dogs are sleeping in their sweaters. :-)
I wonder how well the Prius will do in such cold? Will the windmills work?
When I was a young puppy, my dad once told me that “everybody complains about the weather, but nobody will do anything about it.” I’ve remembered this quote and decided to spend the rest of my life DOING something about it.
Seriously
I hear ya. The guy is insisting that when he was a kid, it was regularly 70 degrees cooler at this time of year in Florida? This is why we can't take liberals seriously on anything. They just make it up as they go along.
I see it all the time these days. I always wonder what's going to happen to the moron if they run out of gas or break down on some lonely back road in that cold.
Darwin Award candidates - every one.
Oh they're working on it Rc.
A couple quasillian dollars to LOWER the temperature by about a half a degree over the next 30 or 40 years.
All paid for by you...
Hope that makes you feel better about what your gov is doing.
I know I do...(:O))
Heaven help us when it finally gets hot. In summer. Like it's supposed to. The AGW freaks are going to be insufferable.
I can’t even think with a temperature reading like that. I’m sure my lungs would freeze up, just taking a breath.
It's gonna' be 78 degrees here Sunday.....
I live in Se Nebraska, it’s the same way here. Snow will actually sublime (evaporate) over time without wind, although slowly. Temperature ranges here are ridiculous, I’ve seen it close to -20 in winter to as hot as near 115 in the summer.
Yeah, wasn't Obama supposed to stop the rising of the seas and all that?
Figgers.....yet another broken promise.
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