Extreme danger and record low temperatures: a polar air mass will affect much of the US during Christmas week

A large arctic air mass will enter the United States this week, causing record low temperatures that will complicate travel and produce extremely dangerous situations from the center to the southeast of the country, experts warned.

"We are facing well below normal, potentially record low temperatures heading into the Christmas holidays," said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The polar air arrives as a storm system that has left much of the northeastern United States buried under two feet (about 60 centimeters) of snow begins to subside.

In New England alone, more than 80,000 customers were left without power on Sunday morning, according to the specialized site poweroutage.us, on a day of intense cold.

The incoming Arctic front will bring "extreme and prolonged freezing conditions to southern Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana," the National Weather Service warned in a special bulletin on Sunday.

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By Thursday night, temperatures will drop to as low as 13 degrees Fahrenheit (-10.6 degrees Celsius) in Jackson, Mississippi and as low as 5 degrees (-15 degrees Celsius) in Nashville, Tennessee, the National Weather Service forecasts.

Christmas week will also see winter "coldest air of the season" as polar air moves across the eastern two-thirds of the country, according to the latest forecasts from the Federal Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. .

The center warned that frigid temperatures will spread midweek from the Rocky Mountains and Plains to the Midwest, then reach the Gulf of Mexico coast and much of the eastern part of the country on Friday and into the weekend. .

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Montana was among the first states to feel the arrival of arctic air.

According to Jason Mundel, who runs the Ripp'n Lipps guide service, the thermometer dropped as low as 4 degrees Fahrenheit (-15.6 degrees Celsius) Sunday night.

Atlanta won't be spared the bitter cold either, according to the Georgia National Weather Service.

On Monday morning the temperature will move in very low numbers and it is expected that on Friday it will be around 13 degrees (-10.6º Celsius).

On Saturday, Christmas Eve, the situation will persist with around 29 degrees (-1.7º Celsius), according to forecasts by the Meteorological Service.

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Florida will not have a white Christmas, but forecasters expect that weekend to be unusually cold across the state for these dates.

Northern cities such as Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Pensacola have forecast lows of 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-3º Celsius) on Christmas Eve, with highs of about 40 (4º Celsius).

New England police spent the weekend responding to hundreds of accidents or vehicles that went off the road.

The Maine authorities, on their side, assured on Saturday night that in just 24 hours they had had to attend to more than 180 accidents.

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In Vermont, public officials have set up centers to house citizens who are unable to heat their homes or cook after losing power.

“Some people came last night who couldn't cook for themselves, so we made sure we had room for them,” Becket Gourlay, host of Peterborough, New Hampshire's Waterhouse restaurant, said Sunday.

“Even today we had some people come to watch the final game of the World Cup because their TVs weren't working.”