Much of the Chicago area is experiencing rare March subzero temperatures Monday morning, as an unseasonably cold arctic air mass settles over the area. Gusty northwest winds, in tandem with the cold, are dropping wind chill values as low as minus 25. Monday’s expected high of 12 will be a record-breaker, displacing the current 17-degree record low maximum for March 4, that has been on the books since 1890. The cold will ease through the week, with the mercury breaking above the freezing mark Friday for the first time in nearly a week. The cold descended into the Midwest in the wake of a storm system that brought several inches of snow to the southern Midwest and triggered a severe weather outbreak in the South that spawned numerous, deadly tornadoes across portions of Alabama and Georgia.