The freakishly icy and prolonged attack of cold air that has plunged nearly all of Utah into a deep-freeze is snapping our water pipes, making starting our cars dicey and for Riverton High School students, forcing school to let out early.

A boiler malfunction sent temperatures in the school down to 40 degrees on Tuesday. After a few hours of bundling up and continuing on as best they could, students were sent home at 11:30 a.m.

Although the boiler was repaired around 10:30 a.m., it required about four hours to sufficiently heat the school, Jordan School District spokesman Michael Kelley said.

School was in session the minimum four hours to count for a full school day, so students won't have to put in a make-up day, Kelley said.

Unfortunately, the Arctic weather that settled across the state last week is expected to continue for at least a couple more days.

Randy Graham, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said late Tuesday that expected overnight lows in the Duchesne region this morning would be "the fifth night in a row below zero," this time with temperatures at minus 20 or colder.

Other overnights lows were projected to be minus 13 in Delta, minus 20 in Randolph, minus 10 in Cedar City and for Logan, somewhere between minus 5 to minus 10.

Tonight, we could get "a little break" in some of the northern valleys when a weak upper-level front grazes the region, he said. The cloud cover will prevent temperatures from dropping as far.

Other areas like Delta, Fillmore and Milford will remain quite cold, Graham said. "They'll drop well below zero again on Thursday morning."

The small front that will brush by in the north won't be strong enough to overturn the atmospheric inversion that locks stagnant air in the cities. Harmful pollution probably will continue to build up, forcing restrictions on wood burning.

"We'll be cold again on Friday morning," Graham added. But at mountain ski resorts, above the inversion, temperatures will be higher. Alta was expected to reach 30 degrees.

That will be no help to St. George residents who were smacked with freezing weather.

Pipes froze there, both inside and outside homes, said Mike Orr, owner of Service Specialists, a St. George plumbing repair business. "I've had several today, and they started coming in on the weekend because of the cold snap," he said Tuesday.

Most of the breaks have cracked water pipes installed outside for lawns. "If the pipe's buried, you've got to have some kind of protection," he said. Insulation can be placed on the pipe. Better, he said, is to have a shutoff valve and a drain and get the water out.

Inside, it may help to open kitchen cabinet doors if they are near pipes to keep them warm. "There's a good chance that would prevent freezing," he said.