A three-year-old Toronto boy died this afternoon after he wandered away from home in the middle of the night. The boy spent six hours exposed to the elements before rescuers found him behind a nearby home and rushed him to the hospital. Temperatures in Toronto dipped to -2°F this morning with a wind chill of -21°F.

The coldest air many places have seen in years (and even decades) will descend upon the eastern U.S. this evening, producing dangerous and record-breaking low temperatures on Thursday and Friday stretching from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast. Lows close to zero will reach as far south as South Carolina.

The coldest air of the winter is draining into the United States, and holy crap it's cold. Temperatures in much of the north are struggling to climb into the single digits today, while Boston and the NYC suburbs will flirt with lows near zero on Thursday morning. Here's what you need to know to survive the deep freeze.

An intense outbreak of cold weather will descend on the eastern two-thirds of the country next week, with widespread low temperatures in the single digits and below zero for a couple of days. Lows in the teens are even possible as far south as Alabama and Mississippi.

The leading edge of the Arctic air filtering into the U.S. is abrupt and ruthless—temperatures in Iowa at 4:00 PM ranged from 72°F in the southeastern corner of the state and 27°F with a wind chill of 11°F in the northwestern corner of the state. Ahh. Or brrr, depending.

We're all about to freeze to death at the hands of an angry Alaskan sea bomb! Or, that's what it sounds like when you scroll through Twitter, anyway. What is this "bomb" everyone is talking about? Just how cold will it get and for how long? That question and more, answered below.