© Tyler LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via Associated Press
Chicago's lakefront is frozen over Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. The National Weather Service had a wind chill warning in effect until 12 p.m. Friday for counties in northwestern and north central Illinois.
An arctic blast spread painful cold across the Midwest on Friday, closing schools, opening warming centers and even intimidating ice fishermen in a taste of the even more dangerous weather expected next week.
Forecasters called it a replay of the "polar vortex" that bludgeoned the U.S. in 2014 - and maybe even colder, with wind chills by midweek as much as 45 below in Chicago.
"We're going to be feeling it big time," Jeff Masters, meteorology director at the private Weather Underground, said.
"It's going to be the coldest air in five years."
For much of middle America, the leading edge was bad enough. Cold weather advisories were in effect Friday from North Dakota to Ohio, with dangerously cold wind chills that could dip to as low as 45 below zero (negative 42 Celsius) in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota and to 35 below (negative 37 Celsius) in parts of northern Illinois and Iowa.
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