Exhaust from passing cars rises as a pedestrian prepares to cross a Minneapolis street Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009 during another day of sub-zero temperatures.
(Jim Mone/AP Photo)More Photos
"The problem is that cold hurts you much more rapidly and more uniformly. You can put a number of folks in the desert, many of them will do fine," said Wallace Carter, of New York Presbyterian Hospital. "You can take 10 people, put them out in subzero weather and they will all start to have serious side effects and will ultimately die. "
Even people who may seem to be prepared for the weather aren't necessarily safe from the frigid air.
"Most people think that they are well prepared and in fact they're not well prepared. People underestimate how incredibly insidious and violent cold temperature is," Carter said.
Experts said the key to warding off hypothermia is limiting skin's exposure to the cold.
While much of the nation battles wintry weather, NASA has released a report saying 2008 was the coolest year since 2000.
"It's always a little bit difficult to talk about global warming when you're gonna have the coldest day of the year. But you have to realize that weather isn't abolished just because there's a long-term trend in the climate," said Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist for NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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