The following chart, from the "climate reanalyzer" tool out of the University of Maine, shows forecast temperature departures from average on Friday. The eastern U.S., as well as parts of Canada, sticks out for having the most unusually cold conditions on the planet on Friday.
In fact, much of the rest of North America -- including the western U.S., northwest Canada and Alaska -- along with most areas of the world, are milder than average. It's as if the North Pole temporarily relocated to Boston, while leaving the door open for the Southern Hemisphere's summer to sneak in and evaporate California's snow pack, while also setting high temperature records all the way into inland Alaska.
During just the past seven days, nearly 1,300 cold temperature records have been set or tied across the lower 48 states, most of them east of the Rocky Mountains.
Over the longer-term, the world -- and even the U.S. -- is still running much milder than average. After the warmest year on record in 2014, January 2015 was the second-warmest January on record for the globe, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
And since Jan. 1, warm temperature records are outpacing cold temperature records in the U.S. by a margin of about four to one.