A sailboat is frozen in ice along the eastern end of Barnegat Bay. Cold and windy conditions prevail over the entire Jersey Shore area © Doug Hood/Asbury Park Press / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
(New York, NY) – Dangerously high wind gusts remain around the Tri-state region, as bitter cold has also descended on parts of the US — amid a polar vortex. On Monday, high winds prompted transportation officials to ban any motorcycles, trailers, and others from the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. The wind is making temperatures feel much colder than they are and we can expect single digit and subzero windchills. The winds will finally let up Wednesday, but then later that night a snow storm will move into the region.
The high winds led to widespread power outages reported across New Jersey earlier in the week. Nearly 19,000 Jersey Central Power and Light customers and 6,000 PSE&G users in the dark. About five thousand Atlantic City Electric customers are also waking up to the lights off. Meanwhile, city area airports including JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark, all experiencing delays this morning. The wind was also causing problems yesterday, with two hour delays being reported on several flights.
Across the US, even colder temperatures have been reported. Millions are facing truly frigid temperatures that are 40 to 60 degrees lower than average. The north-central part of the country will get the worst of the cold, with wind chills as low as -60 degrees in parts of Montana, Minnesota and the Dakotas. Extreme Cold Warnings are in place for over 58 million people from the US-Canada border to Texas.
