85% of the US is being affected by below freezing temperatures this week, and nearly half of those people could face temperatures below zero. Throughout the country temperatures have been the coldest it has been in a generation. The harshness of this weather has already killed at least seven people and forecasters expect conditions to worsen dramatically. The national weather service described this event as “one of the coldest arctic air mass intrusions in recent memory”. It said that very dangerous wind chills could spread across most of the country, causing record lows and low maximum temperatures, getting down to more than 20 degrees below zero in the Mid-west. Sub zero temperatures have been predicted to cover 85 percent of the US land area where 75 million Americans live.
This cold is creating many concerning issues for people living in the north such as possible frostbite and hypothermia which were normal things to happen before industrialization and indoor heating. If we didn’t have indoor heating and electricity many more people would be dying. The fact that people have already died puts it in perspective how harsh winters were before electricity.
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