The arctic cold, which is currently affecting the Midwest of the United States, is impeding beer deliveries. Temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celsius (-40 degrees Fahrenheit) causes beer to freeze on the trucks before being delivered.
"Most of the folks up north are not delivering," Mike D. Madigan, President of Minnesota Beer Wholesalers Association, was quoted on CNN. "Most distributors are not delivering in the Twin Cities, down south and out west." Only few distributors have heated trucks and can keep up beer deliveries. "But there's not many. You tend not to need heated trucks," says Madigan.
A polar vortex, a massive cyclone of cold air which determines the North American weather for the last few days, causes life-threatening temperatures in much of the United States. Affected are about 83 million people - about a quarter of the total population of the United States - especially in the Midwest and the metropolitan areas of the Great Lakes, such as Lake Michigan. Already eight people are said to have died as a result of the cold.
"This is the coldest air that many of us have ever experienced," says the National Weather Service. AccuWeather, an American media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services, estimates that this week’s freezing temperatures could cost the U.S. economy up to US$14 billion.
Scientist state that weather extremes like the polar vortex are part of global warming. U.S. President Donald Trump, who is known to reject the idea of a man made climate change, tweeted last week: “Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!”
