The most extreme arctic blasts, blamed on a weather pattern known as the polar vortex, were said to have affected nearly 190 million people.

In Kentucky, an escaped prisoner turned himself in to get out of the cold.

Some parts of the Midwest hit -26C (-14F), as low as the Antarctic coast in winter, and much colder than the inside of a domestic freezer.

Temperature records were shattered in states across the US, including Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Michigan, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

It was -17C (1F) in the small town of Hell, Michigan, prompting online jokes that the weather was so bad even hell had frozen over.

  america, freez