US deep freeze forecast to break Christmas Eve records

 An arctic blast gripped much of the United States on Saturday (Dec 24) driving power outages, flight cancellations and car wrecks, as plummeting temperatures were predicted to bring the coldest Christmas Eve on record to several cities from Pennsylvania to Georgia.

Temperatures are forecast to top out on Saturday at just -13 degrees Celsius in Pittsburgh, surpassing its previous all-time coldest Christmas Eve high of -10 degrees Celsius, set in 1983

Cities in Georgia and South Carolina - Athens and Charleston - were likewise expected to record their coldest daytime Christmas Eve high temperatures, while Washington, DC, was forecast to experience its chilliest Dec 24 since 1989.

The flurry of yuletide temperature records were predicted as a US deep freeze sharpened by perilous wind chills continued to envelope much of the eastern two-thirds of the nation into the holiday weekend.

The freeze already produced fatal car collisions around the country with CNN reporting at least 14 dead from weather-related accidents.

The arctic cold combined with a "cyclone bomb" of heavy snow and howling winds roaring out of the Great Lakes region on Friday and into the Upper Mississippi and Ohio valleys wreaked havoc on power systems, roadways and commercial air traffic.