Freezing iguanas fall from trees as America braces for lowest temperatures on record

Battered by the bomb cyclone which brought heavy snow and flooding to a swathe of the US, America is facing the threat of the big chill. As workers started shovelling away the mountain of snow, temperatures started plunging.

They plummeted to as low as -20C (-4F) in many parts of New England. In Caribou, northern Maine, the wind chill was poised to bring the reading down to -40C (-40F).

According to the National Weather Service, the lowest temperature on Friday, -41C (-42F), was recorded at Embarrass, Minnesota. On the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire, forecasters expect the biting winds to make it feel as if it was -100F (-70C).

Some parts of the US are bracing themselves for the coldest temperatures on record over the next few days, with the lowest readings expected on Sunday morning.

Such is the cold that there are fears that they will render useless the grit used to make roads passable.

Experts warned that bitterly cold temperatures pose a serious health risk, with frostbite taking hold swiftly.

"Any kind of exposed skin can freeze in a couple of minutes." Wind chill describes the combined effect of wind and low temperatures on bare skin," Dan Pydynowski, a meteorologist with private forecasting service AccuWeather.

The cold snap is already estimated to have claimed at least 19 lives. They included four people in North and South Carolina whose cars ran off the road.

In Philadelphia, a passenger was killed with a car failed to stop on a steep snow-covered hill and piled into a commuter train.

Elsewhere, in Virginia, a girl was killed when she was hit by a pick-up truck while sledging and a 75-year-old man was hit by a snow plough.

Other fatalities were reported in Wisconsin, Texas, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and North Dakota.

Even the south was not spared. Florida saw temperatures fall below freezing in some parts of the state bringing snow to Tallahassee, the capital, for the first time in nearly 30 years.

This was a novelty in a state whose winter population is swollen by expatriate New Englanders fleeing south. The dusting of snow was marked by the production of a line of hoodies and t-shirts reading "I survived the blizzard of '18."

It was all too much for iguanas in the state who started dropping out of trees much to the alarm of Floridians who were not used to seeing the reptiles on the ground in a state of apparent rigor mortis.

It is hoped that they will survive if they are allowed to thaw out.

Drastic measures were called for at the Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi, Texas, where sea turtles were brought inside for their own safety.

Further north, Massachusetts took a battering with the National Guard called out to rescue people in coastal towns after flooding turned some roads into rivers.

In Boston, a tide of over 15 feet broke the record set during a blizzard in 1978.

Marty Walsh, the city's mayor, pleaded with motorists to stay off the road because cars were getting stuck. "We want to clear the streets," he said