Bitter temps and high winds sweep US Northeast

CONCORD, New Hampshire - Falling temperatures replaced the weekend's falling snow on Monday as bitter cold and gusty winds swept across the eastern United States.

The National Weather Service had forecast that temperatures would be more than 6 C below normal across the Northeast, with wind gusts up to 48 km/h and wind chills approaching -40 C in northern New York and Vermont.

Atop the Northeast's highest mountain, the temperature fell to-31 C on Monday morning and dropped to -35 C later in the afternoon, according to the Facebook page for the Mount Washington Observatory, in New Hampshire. Wind chills were hovering around -62 C.

The weather contributed to multiple deaths over the long Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

In suburban Chicago, the temperature was about -10 C on Sunday when a 12-year-old girl died after a snow fort she was playing in collapsed.

In Connecticut, a utility company subcontractor died on Sunday after being struck by a falling tree while working on a power line in Middleton. More than 10,000 homes and businesses in Connecticut remained without power on Monday afternoon, down from a high of more than 25,000 outages on Sunday, as temperatures dropped below zero in some locations.