Western Canada is already feeling a bone-chilling cold arctic front where temperatures with the wind chill in near Whistler, British Columbia dipped around -58F (-50C) on Thursday.
Edmonton, Alberta is forecast to hit its coldest day in more than 50 years, with Environment Canada warning that the mercury might hit -40F (-40C) overnight into Saturday.
The bitter cold has already caused a series of disruptions, including flight cancellations out of Calgary and a shutdown of an “air handling” system at a hospital in Edmonton, causing patients at the emergency department to temporarily relocate.
As the cold air moves eastward, Mr Hurley with the NWS said it was very likely that parts of the US would see record-low temperatures, especially in Montana and the Dakotas.
Wind chill warnings ranging from -55F (-48C) to -35F (-37C) have been issued across the northwest, from Washington to North Dakota, and down to Nebraska and Kansas.
In northern Missouri, wind chills up to 35 degrees below zero were predicted, along with 2-4in of snow, and wind gusts up to 45mph. Those cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes, the NWS warned.
“We call it ‘life-threatening’ for a reason,” a local Missouri branch of the service wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Take it seriously. This kind of cold does not happen very often.”
Source: BBC
