Wind chill advisories up as arctic air pushes across the country
The winter storm moved out and the winter cold is moving in, with arctic air pushing across the country. Wind chill advisories are up Friday night from the Midwest to the East, and as far south as the Carolinas.
Five degrees above zero is brisk, but five degrees with a breeze is brutal.
"It like bites your skin a little bit when you get outside," one man in Chicago told CBS News' Dean Reynolds.
Anyone outdoors faced polar gusts blowing across the Northern Tier and deep into the Midwest, and the wind chills were nothing to sneeze at.
It's colder in Cleveland than Greenland, colder in Minneapolis than Murmansk, and numb's the word in North Dakota at negative one.
In some places, it will feel like it's more than 40 below zero. High atop Mount Washington in New Hampshire, the wind chill could approach 100 below.
Road crews near Cincinnati scrambled to repair a water main that picked a lousy time to break. Firemen fought flames and ice during an early morning blaze in Chicago.
- Why is it so cold right now in a warmer world?
- Frozen iguanas falling from trees during cold snap in Florida
The Detroit River froze over, and the Chicago River looked well on its way. Lake Michigan's shoreline was no place to swim, either.
At Chicago's drafty Greyhound terminal, hundreds huddled for long-delayed buses, and their drivers, still snowbound in the stormy East. Karen Graham spent the night waiting to leave the windy city for the Sunshine State.
"At least if we were on a bus we would be warm," she said. "We're freezing."
Friday marked the 11th-straight day of Chicago high temperatures below 20 degrees, and Saturday should be the 12th. But the cold spell is expected to break on Sunday when the thermometer hits the balmy 30s.
Meanwhile, Boston woke up Friday to the weather equivalent of a bad hangover after a wild and wintry 24 hours. With temperatures plunging into the teens, tough New Englanders moved around in clouds of breath vapor, doing the slick-sidewalk shuffle.
CBS News' Don Dahler found Stephanie Cummings digging out her car. When asked if she said if was ready for spring, she said "not quite yet."
Others were dealing with the unpleasant results of a violent storm. Cars were frozen in a parking lot turned lake of ice in Revere, Massachusetts, and basements flooded after high winds sent waves bursting through a sea wall in Situate.
That combination of winds, high tide, and a super moon produced the highest tide the area has ever seen. But the Boston area wasn't alone in the misery. Up and down the East Coast, tens of thousands spent a frigid night without power.
In Onondaga, New York, volunteers with the ASPCA went searching for neglected pets. They found Sparky, whom neighbors said had been left outside all morning, but he's now warm and safe.
As for the weekend, it won't get above single digits in Boston Saturday, and there's the possibility of more snow on Monday.