VIDEO: Guy Drags Plastic Bag Along Windshield, You’ll Be Racing To Try This Trick

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With the Midwest experiencing record-low temperatures, a Facebook video has gone viral showing a driver dragging a plastic bag along his car’s windshield. When I realized why he was doing it, I was racing to try the nifty trick, too.

The Midwest is currently experiencing dangerously low temperatures. In some spots, it’s even colder than Antarctica. The temperature has dropped so low, in fact, that most residents have not experienced this type of cold in their lifetimes and are unlikely to ever again.

Heavy snow and powerful wind created blizzard-like conditions Monday across parts of the Midwest, prompting officials to cancel about 1,000 flights at Chicago’s airports and close hundreds of schools.

But forecasters warned the most dangerous weather is yet to come: frigidly low temperatures that the region hasn’t seen in a quarter century.

Snowplow drivers had trouble keeping up with the snow in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where some areas got as much as 15 inches. Chicago-area commuters woke up to heavy snowfall, with more than 5 inches already on the ground. In Michigan, non-essential government offices were closed, including the Capitol. [Source: Daily Mail]

But the snow is only “part one, and maybe even the easier part” because temperatures will plummet over the next three days, according to Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center. “You’re talking about frostbite and hypothermia issues very quickly, like in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds,” Hurley said.

Wednesday is expected to be the worst, with wind chills in northern Illinois potentially falling to negative 55 degrees, which the National Weather Service called “possibly life threatening.” Meanwhile, temperatures in Minnesota could hit minus 30 degrees with a wind chill of negative 60.

The potentially record-breaking low-temperature forecast in Milwaukee is negative 28 degrees, with a windchill as low as negative 50. The current record of minus 26 degrees was set in 1996. “That’s 40 degrees below normal,” said Hurley. “When you think about it in that sense, that’s a big ‘whoa.'”

Wednesday is looking like one of the coldest days ever on record in Chicago, with the high temperature expected to be 12 degrees below zero, which would be colder than some of the most frigid places on earth.

For example the South Pole is expected to reach a high temperature of 4 below zero on Wednesday. Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost point in the United States, located above the Arctic Circle, will be 7 below zero. Zackenberg Station, Greenland, which is also north of the Arctic Circle, will be 11 below.

While there is no weather station on the summit of Mount Everest, you would certainly expect even the base camp would be colder than Chicago, given it’s at an elevation of more than 17,000 feet above sea level. No such luck. They’re expecting a high of 30 on Wednesday. [Source: CBS Chicago]

In the wake of such frigid temperatures, a Facebook video has gone viral, as it depicts one driver’s ingenious trick to defrost his car’s windshield in record time. He even found a way to warm his hands in the process!

“Hot water in a food bag and bam you’ve got a de-icer and a hand warmer. Works a treat, and it’s fast!” Daniel Harris captioned his video.

Harris also explained that he only used warm tap water — not boiling liquid that he heated on the stove — so as not to burn his hands or crack his windshield.

The video has been viewed millions of times in the wake of this week’s record-low temperatures and shared tens of thousands of times by intrigued social media users. Will you try this method of de-icing your car’s windshield?