Associated Press: Heavily bundled Midwesterners were shuffling quickly from place to place in a bid to spend as little time as possible outside in bone-chilling, subzero cold that was expected to last through Monday morning.

"It's so cold, it feels like needles are pricking my eyes," grumbled 19-year-old Ashley Sarpong of Chicago, a fur-lined hood pulled around her face Sunday as she crossed a wind-swept bridge that crossed the Chicago River. "This is the coldest I've felt all year."

The big freeze was expected to last through Monday morning, the first full day of the official winter season, when wind chill advisories for the region were to expire.

Snowfall was scant after the frigid air mass rolled in, but ice and high winds whipped up snow along roadways and made driving hazardous for holiday travelers.

But the worst danger was from the cold -- exacerbated by 20-to-30 mph winds that drove wind chills to 25 degrees below zero, or even lower, according to the National Weather Service.

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