Extremely cold weather is gripping much of Southwest Louisiana — a rare occurrence in Sportsman’s Paradise.

Life-threatening wind chills experienced on Friday will continue into Saturday morning, the National Weather Service’s Lake Charles office reported. The wind chills are expected in the single digits to lower teens. These values can cause hypothermia and frostbite to those not protected, NWS reported.

A hard freeze warning will continue through Saturday morning, as well, as an arctic mass lingers over the region. Another hard freeze warning will go into effect Saturday night and into Christmas morning. The freeze is expected to bring temperatures in the teens and low 20s — and some locations will stay below freezing for 36 to 42 hours.

A warming station at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, 2009 N. Simmons, will remain open through Monday, Dec. 26.

Numerous power outages attributed to the freezing temperatures were reported Friday morning. Areas affected included south Lake Charles and Moss Bluff. Entergy reported 996 outages in Calcasieu and BECI reported 155.

The towns of Kinder and Oberlin will be cutting off their water from 9 p.m. Friday night until 6 a.m. Saturday, to allow the Southwest Water District to build their water supplies back up.

The National Weather Service said its warning map “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever” with about 60% of the U.S. population under some sort of winter weather advisory or warning.