Ice, frigid cold and snow caused deaths, twisted power lines and massive pile-ups across the U.S.
Frigid weather across the country has left miserable, nasty and sorrow-inducing conditions, and it's not over yet.
The bitter cold has made for an astonishing sight at Niagara Falls, where the trees and ground surrounding the majestic waterway have been frozen solid before tourists braving the extreme temperatures.
At least 12 people have died across the nation, including 55-year-old Kenneth Martin, who was found frozen to death the morning after Christmas at a bus stop in Cincinnati. "May your forever rest in peace in God's Army," the homeless advocacy group Maslow's Army posted on its Facebook page.
A dog was found "frozen solid" on a house porch in Toledo, Ohio, and two sharks found off the coast of Massachusetts likely died of "cold shock," a conservancy group said.
Frigid temperatures that descended on America before the holidays and still grip large parts of the South and the East Coast saw more than 60 inches of snow dumped on Erie, Pa. Plummeting mercury left International Falls, Minn., in temperatures of 36 below.
Highway patrols warned motorists that road salt is basically useless when temps drop below -10. This week, the National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories and freeze warnings from South Texas to the Canadian border, and from Maine to Montana.
In a freak reversal of Fahrenheit, the high in Anchorage, Alaska, was a whopping 45 degrees, while Jacksonville, Fla., shuddered under a high temp of 38.
“You thought you were cold last year. You thought you were cold last month. But you weren’t cold. Now you’re cold,” Jeanne Rivera, of Crystal Lake, Ill., who was in Chicago on Tuesday to visit an art exhibit, told The Associated Press. “It hurts. It hurts the face.” The temperature there is negative 35 degrees.
And it may only get worse from here. A brutal storm is forecast to hit Wednesday in the Southeast, bringing rain, sleet and snow before moving north. Some schools in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina will close. As the storm heads north, it's expected to morph into a so-called "bomb cyclone" off the New England coast. That means snow, hurricane-force gusts and blizzard conditions.
In Buffalo Tuesday, some 100 cars were caught in massive pile-up during a snow storm. The area is under a blizzard warning until 1 a.m. Wednesday.
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