said he was along for the ride. he said there is nothing he could do but just go with the ride. he couldn t stop. the roads were just ice covered. reporter: it is a mess out there. look at the temperatures. these are current temperatures not wind chill factors. it is minus 13 degrees. it will feel like minus 30, minus 40 overnight across the northern tier. this is how the wind chill feels right now in st. louis, it s 29 degrees windchill factor. but minot, minus 35. and it s only going to get worse. this first blast moves in over the next 24 hours and the next three to four days it makes its way all the way to the deep south. victor? karen, those people in minot have to be just hardy folks. they often are in the most extreme temperatures every time it s like and minot, 77 below zero. you re exactly right. karen, thank you. bye.
severe weather caused some major travel problems and headaches across the country. in total, 55 million people min 24 states faced winter advisories and the first major storm of 2015. karen mcguinness has details for us. reporter: the first major storm of 2015 bringing severe weather to much of the eastern half of the country just as millions of travelers are headed home from the holidays. in all, 55 million people in 28 states faced winter storm watches, warnings and advisories this weekend. in mississippi, rain and strong winds destroyed several mobile homes bringing down trees, knocking out power lines, a possible tornado hitting jasper county in the southeastern part of the state. it was just like a train is coming. that s the way it was. it was just like a train coming.
you know, weather played such a major role in not we believe thus far, investigators believe in the crash but also in the search. so let s talk with meteorologist karen mcguinness for the latest. we have new videos of the waves. it shows the dangerous condition of the water. it s improving but still it s not calm enough for divers. on the surface it appears better. tell us more about what the search crews are dealing with. you are absolutely right. i was just speaking with my meteorologist producer and we were looking at the data. there are white caps. the seas are still rough. they may not be 13 to 18 feet like we had been seeing over the previous week. but they re still rough. we re looking at eight to ten foot wave heights here. so this is not conducive for as thorough a search they would like to do. a forecast was for improving
clearer. the weather is going to continue to be turbulent in this region which gets a lot of monsoon weather this time of year. gary tuchman, thank you so much. he is advising us there that there are now 35 bodies shthat have been recovered. thank you so much, gary. let s talk about the variable of the weather that s really complicating this search for the bodies and the wreckage. we ve got meteorologist karen mcguinness with us. we know you have new video of the waves showing the dangerous conditions, how rough it is there. some improvement as you explained this morning but not nearly enough. we see calm on the surface but not calm enough below the surface for divers to get into the water. yes. and gary was talking about the visibility in the water being stirred up. because this is the monsoon season. you get that wind coming across the ocean surface and it stirs everything up. this is fairly shallow.
of opportunity. it won t give them these long stretches or long periods of time where they can make really great progress. these are almost baby steps to look for windows like this where the visibility might be good, where the wave heights might be lower, where the winds might be calm enough so that they don t things are not stirred up. however, we look through sunday and it still looks brisk. maybe breezy on monday and tuesday. so now we ve got another two days where we have at least partial improvements in the weather. back to you. all right. karen, thank you. today new york police will say good-bye to officer wen liu at a funeral in new york. he is as i m sure you know one of the two officers shot and killed last month. we ve got live pictures here. services are expected to start in just a few hours at 11:00 eastern. i understand there are many people there because we re still