© Mark Lennihan / Associated PressA wind chill made it feel like a few degrees below zero Monday morning as these folks waited for a bus in New York City.
The wind chill in some areas of New England was expected to make it feel as cold as 50 degrees below zero.
Schools in western and northeastern Pennsylvania, across upstate New York and parts of Vermont and New Hampshire closed their doors or delayed openings to protect students.
In upstate New York, the National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories and warnings for much of the region on Monday, including the Adirondacks where the low was 36 below in Saranac Lake early Monday morning.
The Arctic temperatures led Amtrak to suspend rail service Monday morning between Albany and New York City because the extreme cold affected signals and switches. Amtrak hoped to resume limited service between the two cities later Monday. Other rail lines are still running.
In Montpelier, Vt., it was 21 below at 7 a.m.
"Snot-freezing cold," was how Kelly Walsh, 28, described it, walking home from an auto parts store after buying a new battery for her car, which wouldn't start Monday morning.
"I usually really like it. Today is a bit of nuisance," she said.
Others agreed.
Will Forest, a 53-year-old web designer who was walking to work, called the cold "indescribable."
"I spent the summer in Dallas, Texas, and you can only experience the heat when you're there," he said. "Trying to explain it to people here is impossible. Conversely, this kind of cold, to try to explain to someone down there, you have to experience it. But it's also a really good filter, because if we didn't have this cold, everybody would want to live here and it wouldn't be the place it is."
What did he wear to prepare? "I put on two socks, a fleece and a desire to move very quickly."
Temperatures were projected to fall well below freezing across the area, including New York as a high-pressure area builds over the region.
"This is the coldest air we've had in about two years," said Michael Hill, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Caribou, Maine.
A wind chill made it feel like a few degrees below zero Monday morning as these folks waited for a bus in New York City.
In a series of advisories, the NWS warned of "bitterly cold wind chills" taking temperatures to between 15 and 20 below zero in parts of the Hudson Valley and northwestern New Jersey.
"The frigid conditions will be dangerous to those venturing outside," it said, adding that people who did not take precautions like wearing hats, gloves and layers of warm clothes were at risk of frostbite and hypothermia.
A wind chill advisory was also in effect until 11 a.m. ET Monday for areas of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including Boston and the Upper Cape. Temperatures of 15 to 25 degrees below zero were forecast there.
"Frostbite can develop with wind chill index of minus 20," the NWS said.
In Messina, N.Y., it was minus 28 degrees.
In the Washington, D.C., area , a water main break was worsened by the freezing weather. Water quickly turned to ice, closing the Inner Loop of the Beltway in Prince George's County, causing traffic problems.
The National Weather Service predicted a high of 20 in New York City, but no problems were reported at New York City's LaGuardia and Kennedy airports early Monday morning.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it took extra steps overnight to ensure that its commuter trains and subways and buses would run without problems for the morning rush.
Extra crews checked on signals and switches and de-icer and scraper trains were run to ensure ice did not build up on the rails. Some subway trains were stored underground and buses were checked for any equipment problems.
Story: Easterners have had enough of winter
Layered clothing was the order of the day around New Jersey as temperatures dropped to single digits or below zero. In Newark, N.J., the wind chill made it feel like four below zero.
The thermometer was at minus-6 degrees around 6 a.m. Monday in Mt. Pocono, in eastern Pennsylvania. Subzero temperatures were also recorded in western Pennsylvania, where the National Weather Service issued an advisory over wind chills as low as 20 degrees below zero.
In Philadelphia, a group of determined parents waited on a sidewalk overnight to enroll their children in kindergarten at a prestigious school run in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania. The Penn Alexander School eventually opened its doors, letting the parents in from the cold.
The city also extended an alert issued Thursday that gives officials the power to bring in homeless people to shelters because the weather conditions pose a threat of serious harm or death.
Frozen bodies
Shelters were preparing for an increase in the number of people wanting to get out of the cold, and authorities in Maine and Pennsylvania waived restrictions on heating oil delivery.
About 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia, a man died after spending the night in his car in frigid temperatures in Lansford, and his wife found him Saturday morning.
Temperatures had dropped into the single digits overnight, Lansford police Detective Jack Soberick said, but it's unclear why 49-year-old Alan Kurtz had slept in his car.
In North Haven, Conn., a woman's frozen body was found in a home's driveway Sunday morning after a neighbor called police.
Denise O'Hara apparently fell in a driveway and froze to death Saturday night, when temperatures were close to zero, police said.
Northern New England is used to cold winters; a remote site in northern Maine recorded a minus 50 reading on Jan. 16, 2009. That tied a 1933 record set in Vermont for the coldest temperature recorded in New England.
Locals aren't getting many breaks between storms this season, however.
A significant storm was headed to the Atlantic Coast by Wednesday, according to The Weather Channel.
The storm was building off the coast of Texas on Monday morning, likely to bring rain to the South on Tuesday and a mix of rain and snow on Wednesday to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Wednesday, it said on its web site.
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