Eastern U.S. braces for coldest start to a new year in decades

Eight degrees. That’s the predicted average low temperature for the lower 48 States on New Year’s Day.

A third (34 percent) of the area in the contiguous states is forecast to plummet below zero.

Temperatures in 90 percent of the nation will be below freezing and, in the east, all but the Florida peninsula will feel the wrath of subfreezing wind chills. A remarkable 156 million people are under wind chill alerts across the nation.

Read The Washington Post story by Jason Samenow -  "Eastern U.S. braces for coldest start to a new year in decades.”