'Polar vortex' to blast frigid air over much of US [View all]
Source: AP-Excite
By CARSON WALKER
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - The weather warnings are dire: Life threatening wind chills. Historic cold outbreak.
Winter is normally cold, but starting Sunday tundra-like temperatures are poised to deliver a rare and potentially dangerous sledgehammer blow to much of the Midwest, driving temperatures so far below zero that records will shatter.
One reason? A "polar vortex," as one meteorologist calls it, which will send cold air piled up at the North Pole down to the U.S., funneling it as far south as the Gulf Coast.
The temperature predictions are startling: 25 below zero in Fargo, N.D., minus 31 in International Falls, Minn., and 15 below in Indianapolis and Chicago. At those temperatures, exposed skin can get frostbitten in minutes and hypothermia can quickly set in because wind chills could hit 50, 60 or even 70 below zero.
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Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140104/DAB3OUC00.html
Ice floats on the surface of Lake Michigan Friday, Jan. 3, 2014, in Chicago. Single-digit temperatures are hitting Illinois after the state was blanketed in snow. Meanwhile, residents are bracing for a deep freeze. Highs early next week likely won't reach zero and wind chills could sink to 45 below. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
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