Parts of the US are experiencing a record-breaking wind chill factor that is so cold it’s literally off the National Weather Service’s official charts.
The northeast of the country has been struck by a powerful arctic blast, with the temperature at New Hampshire‘s Mount Washington plummeting to a new low of -46F (-43C).
But the wind chill temperature is how cold people actually feel while outside and depend on the strength and temperature of winds.
High winds of 96mph on Mt Washington have produced a wind chill factor of -108F (-78C) – comfortably below the lowest point on the National Weather Service’s (NWS) wind chill chart, which stands at -98F (-72C).
‘Worst weather in the world’
NWS said Mt Washington, the highest peak in the northeastern US, was “living up to the reputation of having the worst weather in the world”.
New Hampshire is one of several states under wind chill warnings, alongside Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and much of New York, where a “Code Blue” alert for sub-zero temperatures was issued.
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Thousands of properties have lost power and emergency shelters have been opened.
While the deep freeze is expected to be relatively brief, people are being warned the conditions are life-threatening, with schools closed in some cities due to risks of children suffering hypothermia and frostbite.
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One weather expert says the wind chills forecast could cause frostbite on exposed skin in just 10 minutes.
Meteorologist Donald Dumont at the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, said: “It’s painful.”
One of the cities hit by the worst of the freeze is Boston, Massachusetts, where mayor Michelle Wu declared a state of emergency.
Record low temperatures are forecast there for Saturday, and in one of the state’s other cities, Worcester, where residents have already endured lows of 3F (-16C) heading into the weekend.
Boston’s record low is -2F (-19C), set back in 1886, and Worcester’s is -4F (-20C), which dates back to 1934.
‘Citizens have been let down’
The freezing conditions, which are sweeping in from eastern Canada, come as southern states recover from another winter storm that brought days of rain, sleet, and ice.
In Texas, thousands of residents were still without power on Friday night, even as conditions warm up. One of the state’s biggest cities, Austin, has seen 30% of customers without electricity at any given time since Monday.
Mayor Kirk Watson admitted the city “let its citizens down”.
“The situation is unacceptable to the community, and it’s unacceptable to me,” said the Democrat.
One resident, Edward Kim, has had no power or heat since Wednesday. The 43-year-old revealed he was using a generator to keep his home “on life support”.
Another local, Will Rison, said his elderly parents had also been without electricity for three days.
“You can only wrap yourself in so many blankets and wait it out,” he added.
While no deaths have been reported as a result of the outages, the weather has been blamed for at least a dozen deaths on roads across Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma this week.
Donald Trump says a meeting is being set up between himself and Vladimir Putin – and that he and Barack Obama “probably” like each other.
Republican US president-elect Mr Trump spoke to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday, saying Russian president Mr Putin “wants to meet, and we are setting it up”.
“He has said that even publicly and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess,” Mr Trump said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday there was a “mutual desire” to set up a meeting – but added no details had been confirmed yet and that there may be progress once Mr Trump is inaugurated on 20 January.
“Moscow has repeatedly declared its openness to contacts with international leaders, including the US president, including Donald Trump,” Mr Peskov added.
“What is required is a mutual desire and political will to conduct dialogue and resolve existing problems through dialogue. We see that Mr Trump also declares his readiness to resolve problems through dialogue. We welcome this. There are still no specifics, we proceed from the mutual readiness for the meeting.”
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Trump on Obama: ‘We just got along’
Mr Trump also made some lighter remarks regarding a viral exchange between himself and former Democrat President Barack Obamaat Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday.
The pairsat together for the late president’s service in Washington DC on Thursday, and could be seen speaking for several minutes as the remaining mourners filed in before it began.
Mr Obama was seen nodding as his successor spoke before breaking into a grin.
Asked about the exchange, Mr Trump said: “I didn’t realise how friendly it looked.
“I said, ‘boy, they look like two people that like each other’. And we probably do.
“We have a little different philosophies, right? But we probably do. I don’t know. We just got along. But I got along with just about everybody.”
The amicable exchange comes after years of criticising each other in the public eye; it was Mr Trump who spread the so-called “birther” conspiracy theory about Mr Obama in 2011, falsely asserting that he was not born in the United States.
Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked the Obamas, saying the former president was “ineffective” and “terrible” and calling former first lady Michelle Obama “nasty” as recently as October last year.
On Kamala Harris’s campaign trail last year, Mr Obama said Mr Trump was a “78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago”, while the former first lady said that “the consequences of him ever being president again are brutally serious.”
The US Supreme Court has rejected a last-ditch attempt by Donald Trump to delay sentencing in the Stormy Daniels hush money case.
The president-elect was convicted on 34 counts last May in New York of falsifying business records relating to payments made to Ms Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
Prosecutors claimed he had paid her $130,000 (£105,300) in hush money to not reveal details of what Ms Daniels said was a sexual relationship in 2006.
Mr Trump has denied any liaison with Ms Daniels or any wrongdoing.
By a majority, the Supreme Court found his sentencing would not be an insurmountable burden during the presidential transition since the presiding judge, Juan M Merchan, has indicated he will not give Mr Trump jail time, fines or probation.
Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that evidence used in the Manhattan trial violated last summer’s Supreme Court ruling giving Mr Trump broad immunity from prosecution over acts he took as president.
At the least, they said, the sentencing should be delayed while their appeals play out to avoid distracting Mr Trump during the presidential transition.
Mr Trump’s attorneys went to the justices after New York courts refused to postpone sentencing.
Judges in New York found that the convictions related to personal matters rather than Mr Trump’s official acts as president.
Mr Trump’s attorneys called the case politically motivated, and they said sentencing him now would be a “grave injustice” that threatens to disrupt the presidential transition as the Republican prepares to return to the White House.
Mr Trump has said he will appeal again: “I respect the court’s opinion – I think it was actually a very good opinion for us because you saw what they said, but they invited the appeal and the appeal is on the bigger issue. So, we’ll see how it works out,” he said at a dinner with Republican governors at his private club in Florida.
Because the New York case was a state, rather than federal crime, Mr Trump will not be able to pardon himself when he takes office on 20 January.