Ice and snow lead to record freeze in the USA, in pictures (18pics)

 Bone-chilling cold in the U.S. Midwest shattered records in Chicago, closing schools and starting its trudge eastward to an already frozen Boston and New York. Arctic air was expected to keep its grip on the nation's midsection, a day after the minus 8 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 22 Celsius) measured in Chicago broke the low temperature record of minus 7 degrees for the day set in 1936
A Bostonian gingerly tries to remove mammoth icicles from the roof of his home

 Already, it has been cold enough in New York this week to bring the roaring Niagara Falls to a halt, as parts of the waterfall trio on the Canadian border froze over, leaving long spears of ice cascading down from the falls' edges and glacier-like mounds rising up from their plunge pools.
Workers manually remove snow and ice from Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) tracks in Quincy, Boston

 The Bryant Park fountain comes to a shivering halt in New York City

 An interpid commuter travels on foot past giant mounds of ice in Chicago, Illinois

 Even Nashville, Tennessee, hasn't escaped the winter storm

 Ice fills the Calumet River in Chicago. Temperatures dipped as low as -14 in parts of Illinois overnight with wind chills forecast between 20 and 30 degrees below zero

 Marine One lands to pick up US President Barack Obama on the South Lawn of the White House

 Reporters on the lawn of the White House took cover from the freezing air whipped up by the Presidential helicopter

 Icy in front of the Chicago city skyline

The wind chill made temperatures in Chicago feel like minus 25

 Ice forms along the shore on Lake Michigan

 Joe Gasbarra sits on the icy shore of Lake Michigan

 Chicago public schools, serving 396,000 students in the third largest U.S. school district, cancelled classes

 Jogging alongside an ice-covered Lake Michigan

 The bitter cold is now heading east, meaning a frosty Friday morning commute could in store for East Coast residents from Boston down to Richmond, Virginia. More records are expected to fall.

 The sun rises on Lake Michigan as ice forms along the shore

The sun rising over Lake Michigan

Steam rising off Lake Michigan as the sun rises