0 country. >> and every indication is that it doesn't stop at colorado and washington, but that this is a momentum thing. >> tom foreman with the latest numbers. interesting shifts. that's it for me this hour. thanks very much for watching. i'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "the situation room." please join us then. "newsroom" continues right now with brooke baldwin. wolf, thank you. i'm brooke baldwin. not a single state in the u.s. has escaped this brutal and let me add deadly cold. all 50 states plummeting to below freezing. yes, hawaii, i am even talking to you. the deep freeze is blamed for at least 15 deaths so far. some killed on icy roads. others simply froze to death. the snow, the icy conditions still grounding thousands of flights and quite literally stopping trains on their tracks. case in point, just outside chicago, more than 500 passengers spent the entire night stuck inside three amtrak trains, stranded some 15 hours. we'll be talking to one of those passengers by the way coming up. because of this, huge snow and ice drifts blanketing the tracks. this video shot by one of the passengers onboard the train. he talked to cnn this morning. >> initially, they were going to try and push it with other trains. going to send in a rescue train. a whole bunch of different strategies. it was just -- well, we're going to try that and then we wait for two, three hours. they gave us a kind of makeshift meal even. but yeah -- and for the most part, i think the passengers have been pretty tolerant of the situation. what are we going to do? i mean, we're stuck. >> like i said, we'll be talking with one of those passengers. also, michigan, the snow is so heavy the roof of a k-mart buckled under the weight. you saw the sign, the store is closed because of that. overnight, lake effect snow pounded lake erie. the whiteout conditions in buffalo, new york, as i speak. bitter cold air from this polar vortex. the polar vortex created this amazing sight over lake michigan. but there are few places colder than right now than in the heart of minnesota, and it is here in minneapolis where we find cnn's intrepid cold correspondent erin mcpike standing by for us. if you can, can you even describe the bitter cold you are feeling right now? >> reporter: okay, so brooke, right now it's zero degrees. we've gotten up to zero. >> up to zero. >> reporter: you may see one degree -- yes. we might see a degree or two in the next couple hours, but that's as high as it's going to go. it feels like below zero. it feels like negative 11 right now because of this windchill factor. now, when we landed here in minneapolis last night, it was 17 below. and what i can tell you about that, getting off the plane and walking up the jetway, the walls of the jetway were kind of icy. you could still see your breath when you walked out of the jetway and on to the airport. very cold. i haven't been outside for more than ten minutes at any stretch of time. that is bearable. but that's about as long as you want to be outside, because once you go back finside, you can fel it in your fingers and toes. it's painful. you might get a head ache from being out in the cold too long. so that's why everybody's saying don't stay out any longer than ten minutes, 30 minutes tops, because it will hurt. >> i'm sure you would feel it beyond fingers and toes. erin mcpike, we want you to get back inside, you and your photo journalism producer. thank you for standing out there in it for us. from the moment this polar air made its way south, airports have been in meltdown mode. really across the country, just today, more than 2300 flights have been cancelled. airlines still scrambling to clear the backlog of stranded passengers. so it begs the question, why the heck did jetblue cancel 400 flights when other runways kept running? cnn's dane asher is at laguardia airport. this is pretty unheard of. why did jetblue do this? >> reporter: it was really all about jetblue hitting the reset button. they had a lot of flights that depart from the new york city area, the boston area. we are in the terminal. activities slowly resuming, getting back to normal. i've been speaking to passengers outside the jetblue terminal. a lot of them kind enough to share their stories with me. one woman anticipates a four-hour delay before she gets on her flight. another woman saying how difficult it is to get hold of a real live person on the phone. one woman saying she actually ended up calling jetblue 30 times. take a listen. >> so we had a flight at 10:00. and found out it was cancelled. and we tried to call jetblue. they wouldn't answer. they kept hanging up on us. said your call is going to end now. they hang up, they hang up. 30 calls ter. they just gave up. they finally tried one time last night around like 7:00. and then they finally answered the phone. but it was an hour and a half wait on the phone. >> reporter: so a lot of passengers clearly frustrated. i've been speaking to them and asking them, obviously these airlines cannot control the weather. but what could jetblue have done to make the experience a little bit easier? a lot of people saying to me it really is all about communication. one couple actually saying that they were scheduled to leave from laguardia and last-minute, jetblue told them actually no, wait a second, it's actually going to be jfk. so really it's all about communication. i do want to make clear, though, that it's not just jetblue that's experiencing these disruptions. it's other airlines, too, but jetblue does have a lot of airplanes that do depart from the new york area. >> jetblue will be holding a media conference at the bottom of the hour. do we have any clue how they plan to defend what's been going on? >> reporter: right now they're saying they do intend for operations to resume back to normal at 3:00. we're not sure if that's going to happen because there are still some delays. but jetblue has been dealing with specific criticism because they're the only airline that blamed the new faa rules that require pilots to have more r t rest. they've had two years to undergo those changes and other airlines haven't used it as an excuse. so they have been facing some flak for that. >> we'll see if anything does happen. thank you very much. at laguardia, chances are the windchill is unbearable. maybe it doesn't quite look like this. like buffalo. but it's tough to imagine today every single part of the u.s. plummets to below freezing. i'm even talking about states closest to the equator. florida, hawaii. you couldn't escape the chill either. chad myers is standing by. i know this is january, but come on. this is unusual. >> this is probably a once in 20 year event. >> wow. >> when it gets this cold for this long in so many places, people die. i want you to take precautions. make sure the pets are taken care of. this is a live shot from niagara falls, new york. i used to live right back there somewhere. that is the big horseshoe falls. and then the american falls. the maid of the mist is not going to niagara falls today and there is ice jam down here on the river and there could be flooding here in the south towns around buffalo, south buffalo because of all of that water trying to get through the river system, but now ice jam is stopping by that. marquette, michigan, down to 17 degrees below zero. detroit 14 below this morning. pittsburgh breaking the record at nine below. it feels right now, green bay 28 below. i can't even imagine what that feels like. i know when you're trying to do a life shot, your face starts to slow down. the muscles don't want to move. your skin starts to congeal. >> your face hurts. >> but you literally can't make the words anymore. that's what it sounds like when you start to get out there and do a live shot for two to three minutes. so be careful out there. i know there are people that have to work out there, work outside, whether they're baggage handlers or police officers. be kind of them. give them a little bit of a break today. a little extra time for them to do their job maybe. >> chad myers, thank you so much for doing your job and keeping us informed on how cold it is. now some of the hottest stories. six republicans join unanimous democrats in sort of an unexpected win for the long-term unemployment. take a look with me. these are the republicans. dan coates. all six voted yes to three more months of federal aid to people who have not worked for at least half a year. full passage requires another senate vote. an arizona man has been busted allegedly trying to smuggle a woman into the country, and yes, there is a photo. yes, it was in his suitcase. customs and border protection officers at the port say they found the 48-year-old thai national hidden underneath clothing after zipping open the suitcase in the back of an suv and this is what they found. the man was traveling from mexico to the u.s. he now faces human smuggling charges. and a trucker says this crash happened because the officer who reported it also had his blue lights flashing. the trucker says the lights diverted his attention just as traffic ahead was slowing. by the time he recovered, all he could do was swerve, says that driver. no one was killed or injured. america's most recognizable skier will not be hitting the slopes at next month's winter olympics. lindsey vonn says her injured knee is just too unstable to compete for gold at the sochi games. she tore ligaments in her knee 11 months ago. an injury when she crashed in november. von says she plans to have surgery soon so she will be ready for the world championships in vail next february. coming up next, it is the interview that has everybody talking today. dennis rodman right now in north korea, sits down with cnn. goes off on my colleague chris cuomo. you'll hear what rodman says to critics and the remark about an american being held by north korea that is definitely raising eyebrows. >> i don't give a rat's ass what hell you think. i'm saying to you, look at these guys here. look at them.