lucy cavanaugh is in denver, colorado. omar jimenez is in chicago. first we'll head to britley for the conditions. >> that arctic air pushing down into texas and through the ohio valley and southeast. we have actual temperatures below zero. des moines, 9 below. that's fahrenheit. when we factor in the wind, that's what counts. the wind chill. what it feels like to your skin. 39 degrees below zero. wind gusts in indianapolis, 41 miles per hour. sustained winds near 30 miles per hour and only expected to get stronger as the snow deepers over the great lakes. hence, the wind chill warnings in effect across the great plains and texas and ohio valley and slowly moving in to new england. as that front moves through, expect many of us to be below freezing for many hours. jackson, mississippi, 84 hours. that's your forecast to be below freezing which means we could wind up with freezing pipes if we're not careful. 65 degrees, that's where your house needs to be set at least, if not warmer. open up the doors to where the pipes are and also make sure you're dr

that's where we find lucy cavanaugh. good morning to you. how are people holding up after some record drops in temperature there? >> reporter: yeah, don. good morning to you. not a great morning considering how painful it is to be standing out here. we did consider trying to find folks to ask them how that your holding up but thankfully most people seem to be heeding the advice of authority and staying out of this terrible, bitter cold. now colorado is used to cold winters. we're used to snow, we're used to the temperatures dropping but of course the swiftness with which this arctic blast came barrelling through was just remarkable we're talking about a 75-degree temperature swing from roughly 50 degrees on wednesday when i was on air to minus 24 degrees thursday morning and those numbers don't do justice to how it actually feels to the human body, to the skin outside. wind chills of negative 60, approaching negative 60 in some parts of colorado. that's the kind of condition that could cause frostbite to exposed skin in minutes. folks are ur

cnn's lucy cavanaugh is over at the denver airport. how bad is the travel picture today? >> reporter: yeah, i mean, this is what no fun at all looks like, wolf. you can see the massive line of people at the southwest check-in counter. i want to pan over here. the line continues. it goes all the way down this corridor, around the corridor, wrapping around where the tsa pre-check line in. a lot of the people here have been here for hours, if not days. southwest is responsible for many of the cancellations here at denver airport. in fact, denver has seen more than 450 canceled flights today, the bulk of those 411 coming from southwest airlines. and that is just denver. the national travel picture also just as bad. it's having cascading effects. we're talking about nationwide more than 3,600 cancellations, nearly 2,700 of those coming from southwest airlines. more than 6,000 flight delays across the nation. and this is a source of immense frustration, as you can imagine, to passengers who not only have to wait on those insanely long lines. i want to pan over once again to sho

cnn's lucy cavanaugh is in denver. >> reporter: that's right, denver is bracing for its coldest day in 32 years. we began doing live shots about the weather on wednesday afternoon. it was 50 degrees fahrenheit. the sun was out. that arctic frost, the severe storm moving in overnight. it's being described by the national weather service as a life threatening cold front. temperatures expected to plummet to as low as negative 10 to negative 15 degrees fahrenheit. by day break it's going to feel a lot colder. the wind chill expected to be as low as minus 50 degrees fahrenheit or lower. the wind chills will be as low as 60 degrees below zero. these are dangerous conditions, prolonged exposure on naked skin could lead to frostbite. colorado's governor activating the national guard. the denver coliseum is converted into a 24 hour warming center. nearly 1,000 flights, probably more than that canceled across the nation. chicago's o'hare airport leading the way. denver's airport following after that and denver actually saw a very rapid temperature drop. 37 degree temperature drop in just an hour

. >> cnn's lucy cavanaugh has more on the frustration southwest passengers are feeling. >> i wasn't anticipating a nightmare but it is. >> reporter: christmas may be over but for thousands of travelers, the nightmare goes on. >> they canceled our flight and they said they can't help us so we don't know what to do. >> reporter: southwest airlines at the top of the list for cancellations. the airlines ticketing counter at baltimore's bwi a zoo. denver's even longer. >> we had to wait in a line that was four hours and we're still in a line and nobody's giving us any direction on what line to get in. the it's a total you know what show here. >> reporter: and for those trying to call to rebook, good luck getting through. >> calling southwest. calling the airlines, nowhere to be found. i got hung up on multiple times. >> the problem is southwest, they don't give any answer. they don't answer the phone. >> there's no option to rebook anything online. i've been on hold for five hours and 43 minutes. >> reporter: passenger jason freed shows us the proof. southwest airline is experiencing this as a result

l lucy cavanaugh is talking about the record-breaking temperatures. i'm pretty sure everyone else is heeding the warning, staying inside. >> reporter: all the other sane, normal people are staying inside, victor. we do not, unfortunately, have that luxury, and i should say looks can be deceiving. it looks kind of sunny and nice. it's not. it's, like, negative ten degrees. i want to show you once again what this temperature looks like, demonstrated. we have a cup of boiling water here, and i'm going to toss it up in the air and hopefully not burn my cameraman and cause a lawsuit. it's warming up. that's probably good news because people are being asked to stay out of these temper temperatures. if it's warming up, it could be safer. we googled over dumb things to doen te do on television. this is a banana that's frozen. this is what happens when you put a banana outside. why you would put a banana outside, i don't know, but the best thing to do is not be outside unlike us. victor, back to you. >> i'll let you get back in the car. lucy, thank you. >>> jo

cnn's lucy cavanaugh is in denver with the slight warmup there. temperatures went from the negative 20s to at least the teens, but it's still dangerously cold where you are even for a city like denver. >> that's right, jake. i'm regretting my decision to leave ply gloves in the car. it's still pretty cold here. you can see behind me things are slowly returning back to normal. people are out in the street again. there's a much braver gentleman without a warm coat behind me. the stow snow has been plowed. the windchill making things painful but we are now actually anticipating a christmas warmup after this brutal cold front. we do still expect a windchill advisory tonight for the far northeastern plains, but again, the worst is very much over. thursday bitter temperatures nearly set the record for the coldest day in denver's history since records were kept. it was a dramatic 75 degree temperature swing from a high of 50 degrees on wednesday when i was out in the streets to minus 24 on thursday morning. the windchill making us feel even more painful