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Sharks freeze and Niagara Falls turns to ice in -37C temperatures colder than MARS as America braces for the chilliest New Year’s Eve in 50 years
Extreme cold descends of much of the United States as 220million Americans wrap up for coldest New Year in living memory
By Neal Baker
30th December 2017, 1:13 pm
Updated: 30th December 2017, 3:48 pm
THE US is colder than the surface of Mars and Niagara Falls has turned to ice as temperatures plummet to record-breaking lows — leading to frozen sharks washing up on the beach.
It is set to be the coldest New Year in living memory as 220 million Americans wrap up to face lows of -37 degrees Celsius.
Lows are being forecast well into the minus figures even in Fahrenheit this weekend
The crippling cold has brought transit systems grinding to a halt in Boston while there were 30 crashes in one Michigan county alone on Friday morning due to treacherous icy roads.
Fountains froze over in New York where New Years Eve partygoers are being warned to lay off the booze and bring some hand warmers to see the famous big ball drop in Times Square as forecasters say it will hit -11C.
The National Weather Service has warned of hypothermia and frostbite across the country.
A dog in Ohio was found frozen solid on a front porch — while three Atlantic White Sharks have been found frozen solid having been washed up on Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts over the last three days.
The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy said: "We hauled the shark off the beach and it is currently thawing at NOAA Fisheries Service to be dissected later. A true sharkcicle!".
A temperature of -35C was recorded in Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire — the highest peak in the northeastern United States — breaking a record set back in 1933.
The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy said it had found three dead thresher sharks stranded on the shore of the Cape Cod Bay in Brewster, south of Boston, in the last three days
Snowfall is sweeping across much of the north east United States
An 83-year-old woman died from exposure to the cold after crashing her car in eastern South Dakota.
Meanwhile, organisers are being forced to cancel a long list of New Year's celebrations.
Already winter-weary parts of the nation are dealing with a mounting number of weather-related headaches, from highway pileups to frozen pipes and a rash of car thefts.
Police in the Cincinnati area say a half-dozen cars have been stolen in recent days after being left running unattended by owners trying to warm them up.
Woman tries to kayak down snowy slope in Erie, after record snowfall in Pennsylvania
Water near the base of Niagara Falls turned black Saturday afternoon, surprising both tourists and residents alike, The Buffalo News reported.
Pat Proctor, vice president of Rainbow Air Inc., which provides helicopter tours over the falls, was one of the first people to notice the black discharge.
“I was just praying it wasn’t an oil leak,” Proctor said. “It looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.”
Rolfe Porter, executive director of the Niagara Falls Water Board, explained in a statement that one of the sewage plant’s five sediment filtration basins was being flushed out.
“The substance discharged is a result of the routine maintenance of one of the water board’s wastewater sedimentation basins located at the Waste Water Treatment Plant on Buffalo Avenue. The ‘inky water’ is the result of a routine, necessary, and short term change in the waste water treatment process,” Porter said.
“The blackish water contained some accumulated solids and carbon residue within permitted limits and did not include any organic type oils or solvents. The unfortunate odor would be limited to the normal sewer water discharge smell,” the statement added.
Porter noted the filtration unit was taken offline and flushed out in preparation for Monday, when contractors were scheduled to begin work on upgrading the basin.
City leaders and businesses were still upset with the Water Board’s timing, as the move was done in the middle of the tourism season.
“We were shocked,” Niagara Falls city administrator Nick Melson said. “We’re very upset with the lack of communication and we’re going to rectify that with all the stakeholders.”
By Sunday morning, the dark cloud of sewage had dissipated.
The Water Board apologized for causing any alarm and assured that there would be better communication in the future.
The White House is illuminated in rainbow colors. (Photo: Gary Cameron/Reuters)
The White House was lit with the colors of the rainbow Friday night in honor of the Supreme Court’s ruling that marriage equality is a constitutional right throughout the country.
“Tonight, the White House was lit to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to progress and equality, here in America and around the world,” the White House said in a statement. “The pride colors reflect the diversity of the LGBT community, and tonight, these colors celebrate a new chapter in the history of American civil rights.”
Many other landmarks were illuminated in gay-pride colors overnight as the LGBT community and its allies celebrated the historic ruling.
The spire of 1 World Trade Center in New York City is lit in rainbow colors as an NYPD officer opens a street for traffic. (Photo: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
Among them were One World Trade Center in New York City, Niagara Falls between Ontario, Canada, and New York State, Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World in Florida and several city halls, including San Francisco’s and Denver’s.
San Francisco City Hall is illuminated by rainbow colors. (Photo: Gordon Mak/Instagram)
Earlier Friday, President Barack Obama said in a speech from the White House Rose Garden that the decision reaffirmed that all Americans are entitled to the equal protection of the law.
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The commander in chief said the ruling was a victory for Jim Obergefell and the other plaintiffs in the case, gay and lesbian couples, the children and families of same-sex couples and the allies who have worked for marriage equality for decades.
President Obama talks on the phone in the Oval Office of the White House before speaking in the Rose Garden. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
“And this ruling is a victory for America. This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts: When all Americans are treated as equal we are all more free,” Obama said.
Sarah Kate Ellis, the CEO and president of GLAAD, told Yahoo News — during liveblog coverage of the nation’s reaction — that she was thrilled the ruling came ahead of New York’s world-famous gay pride parade this weekend.
“I was thrilled beyond belief. It was a long time coming. I felt that it shows that our love is important, equal and should be protected as well. I feel that it was a phenomenal ruling,” she said over the phone.
Sarah Kate Ellis has been president and CEO of GLAAD since January 2014. (Photo: GLAAD)
Jen Heerwig, an assistant professor of sociology at Stony Brook University, who has co-authored scholarly works on the subject, says that Supreme Court ruling brings the nation’s law up to speed with majority opinion in the United States, which has become steadily and rapidly more liberal on the issue of marriage equality in recent years.
“The past decade or so has seen the most pronounced changes. There are variations in attitudes of different ages. As millennials have come of age there’s been a striking shift in opinion on gay marriages,” she said in an interview with Yahoo News.
Many companies — from American Airlines to General Electric — showed support for gays and lesbians by switching their profile pictures on social media to versions that incorporate the rainbow pride flag.
Colors of the rainbow light the dome of the California State Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/ Reuters)
Countless people across the world took to the Internet to celebrate the decision. The final section of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion went viral and was widely lauded for saying gays and lesbians do not disrespect marriage but want to find fulfillment through it themselves:
"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their pleas is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. The Constitution grants them that right.”
CBS News pointed out that the first time it tackled the issue of same-sex couples was in 1967 with the televised documentary “CBS Reports: The Homosexuals.”
A rainbow-colored U.S. flag flies in front of San Francisco’s iconic Castro Theater. (Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)
In it, the host, acclaimed journalist Mike Wallace, said that the mere notion of homosexuality repels most Americans.
“A CBS poll shows 2 out of 3 Americans look on homosexuality with disgust, discomfort or fear,” he said.
The very notion of rights for gays and lesbians was brand new for most people when the program aired. It predated the Stonewall riots in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City — often credited with sparking the gay liberation movement — by two years.
But, for many Americans, the most salient sign of how much our country has changed was emblazoned on the first family’s home in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.
The White House is lit up in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Gary Cameron/Reuters)
