CNN News:美國(guó)過(guò)半地區(qū)遭遇多年不遇嚴(yán)寒天氣

Hi. Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS.

I`m Carl Azuz.

And I`m bundled up.

With much of the U.S. feeling the effects of the polar vortex, which sounds cool to say and means something much cooler, we`re focusing a lot of today`s show on the cold.

How cold is it?

Well, in Chicago the National Weather service called it Siberia yesterday.

Temperatures fell to 14 below zero.

That was colder than the South Pole, in Antarctica.

那是比南極還要更為寒冷。

Minneapolis, Minnesota warned its residents of historic and life threatening cold.

With wind chills hovering around 50 below zero, frostbite can happen in a matter of minutes.

Now about that polar vortex.

It`s the circulation of winds that normally surround the North Pole.

But occasionally, those winds can get distorted, they can deep south, and when that happens...

Brutally cold arctic air is spreading a dangerous deep freeze over half the country.

The frigid blast forcing schools and government offices to close from the deep south to the North East.

The temperatures that we are talking about are deadly.

This is a combination that is unlike with anything we`ve seen in a long, long time.

Nearly 140 million people will experience wind chill temperatures of zero degrees or below by Wednesday.

Temperatures the country hasn`t seen in decades.

In fact, Chicago, St. Louis and Atlanta are all colder than Anchorage, Alaska.

The conditions are very bad.

Roads are really slippery.

And it`s not just the plummeting temperatures.

A massive snowstorm, battering the Midwest dumped up to 16 inches of snow in St. Louis.

The iconic St. Louis Arch, barely visible under the onslaught of snow.

This is a dangerous storm.

Driving conditions range from difficult to impossible.

In Illinois, the entire basketball team from Southern Illinois University got stranded in the snow.

Returning home from a game, their bus caught in the powerful winter storm.

The team was stuck on the interstate for six hours before a tow truck was able to dig them out.

But there is relief in sight.

The subzero temperatures and snow will virtually be gone by Wednesday.

See, if you can I.D. me.

I`m a type of flu virus that spread worldwide in 2009.

My symptoms are like those of a typical flu.

But I used to be known as swine flu.

Because I`m like a virus that circulates in pigs.

I`m H1N1 and I`m the most common strand of flu that Americans are catching this year.