From Northeast to South, wind chills hit single digits

People in two-thirds of the country woke up to bitter cold Thursday. A giant frozen air mass reached across the East, South and Midwest overnight, and wind chills hit single digits all the way down to Atlanta. It feels like it's below zero from Minnesota to Tennessee.

International Falls, Minnesota, is earning its nickname, "icebox of the nation." It was about 35 below zero there Thursday, reports Minneapolis station WCCO's Ashley Roberts. In Minneapolis, temperatures plummeted to negative 7 degrees overnight, and it's not expected to climb above 6 degrees Thursday.

The coldest it's ever been in Minnesota was negative 60 degrees, and that was in February of 1996. It isn't expected to get that bad again, but this system may last through next week.

The dangerous mixture of snow and bone-chilling temperatures are creating treacherous conditions in the Midwest. Slicked-over roads in southern Michigan left drivers struggling to stay on track.

"I've been sliding a lot in my van ... No matter how much you've driven in it, you just can't really prepare for it because there's so much unexpected that you don't see," one driver said.

Subzero wind chills are raising concerns about hypothermia and frostbite, prompting Chicago Public Schools to cancel classes Thursday. This is their fourth weather-related closure this season.

"I'm guessing we're probably going to be going in to July or something," a student said.

The blast of arctic air is also pushing deep into the South, plunging temperatures up to 40 degrees below normal and freezing over streets.

"You hit a patch of ice, you know you'll lose control of your vehicle. I'm always concerned in weather like this," one truck driver said.

A transportation worker in Knoxville had to jump out of the way of a pickup that lost control over an ice-covered section of Interstate 40.

"It's crazy. First snow we get and we have to deal with something like this," witness Brad Martin said.

In North Carolina, firefighters were able to rescue a teenager who had fallen through a partially frozen pond.

"It was a bunch of screaming and yelling, you know, she was crying, I mean stuck out there on top of the water, was pretty rough," Martin said.

At least six people have died in Tennessee, where the extreme cold is threatening to push power grids to the brink. Officials are asking everyone to conserve electricity as utility crews rushed to restore power to more than 30,000 people Wednesday.