The polar vortex, a mass of dangerously cold air that caused record-low temperatures across the nation, has left 21 people dead as of Sunday. Authorities said they died from conditions caused by the sub-zero degree weather.
A 1-year-old boy died after a snow plow hit the car he was in, Fox News reported. A 20-year-old woman was killed in a crash when her car slid on the ice in front of a tractor trailer.
At least five people died after they collapsed from shoveling snow. Seven people died in Illinois, while another six perished in Indiana. Other victims were said to be homeless people who refused help or could not make it to a warm shelter in time, Fox News reported.
According to weather forecasters, the polar vortex that spread across all 50 states was not that uncommon. But the artic-like temperatures it caused broke decades-old records.
The temperature in New York's Central Park on Tuesday morning was 4 degrees. The last time the park's temperature reached that low was over a hundred years ago in 1896, Fox News reported. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the temperature dropped to 6 degrees. Before that, the lowest temperature recorded was 12 degrees in 1884.
Even in Hawaii temperatures plummeted, reaching 18 degrees on the volcano Mauna Kea, Fox News reported.
"I didn't think the South got this cold," Marty Williams, a homeless man from Chicago, told Fox News. He traveled to Atlanta seeking refuge from the cold. "That was the main reason for me to come down from up North, from the cold, to get away from all that stuff."
According to CBC meteorologist Jay Scotland, the polar vortex began subsiding as of Wednesday
"Today, we're at the ready to start saying goodbye to the polar vortex, as temperatures start to improve across the country," Scotland said, according to CBC News.
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