All-Time Cold Sweeps North America; Snowfall Warnings Issued Across The UK; 10-Foot High Snow Walls In Xinjiang, China; Antarctica's Year Without A Summer; + Lava Reaches Grindavík

The flow is inundating the first homes...

All-Time Cold Sweeps North America

This Arctic Blast always threatened to be big—for all those mainstream meteorologists attempting to downplay it.

Starting in Canada, and with the daily record lows: According to Environment Canada, at least 17 communities across British Columbia alone set their coldest-ever temperatures for the date on Saturday, including 10 in the Interior region.

Penticton shattered a record set back in 1950 by more than 3C, after the daily low on Saturday was -26.6C; Osoyoos also set a new record with a daily low of -22.3C, surpassing its previous record for Jan 13 of -19.8C; while in the North Okanagan, Salmon Arm saw thermometers hit -30.4 C, breaking their previous historical benchmark of -27.2C, set all the way back in 1911.

And before all that, Friday delivered Canada's first -50C (-58F) of the season, at Keg River, Alberta, with the mercury there eventually bottoming out at -51.5C, which is also the Alberta's coldest January temperature since 2004's -52C (-61.6F).

Elsewhere, -49.7C was posted in Sambaa K'e, NWT, -46.4C in Leader, SK, and -45.5C in Fort Nelson, BC.

All-time records lows were among the fallen, including Sunday's -42.6C at Yoho (in books dating back to 1965); the -40.3C at Sparwood (1980); the -27.6C in Penticton (1907); the -23.7C at Nakusp (1991); -21.9C at Nelson (1992); and the -27.2C at Creston (1993). New monthly records include the 26.3C at Castlegar (1954); as well as the -26.2C at Summerland (1990).

Note, these are new records covering B.C. only — many more fell in neighboring provinces.

This cold is seriously impacting Canada's power grid, not least in Alberta where an 'emergency alert' has been issued: "Extreme cold resulting in high power demand has placed the Alberta grid at a high risk of rotating power outages," reads the warning.

One Electroverse reader with his finger on the pulse there, based in Calgary, is Allan MacRae. A frustrated MacRae recently sent a letter to the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith: