One person has died in a 75 vehicle pileup that shut down a section of a New York highway on Tuesday as chilling temperatures hit much of the Northeast in the New Year, writes dailymail.co.uk.

Additionally, one person is was listed as seriously injured and another 11 have been transported to hospitals in the Buffalo area after the pileup on the New York State Thruway from Depew to the Pembroke exit that happened just before 2pm.

While there were said to be 75 vehicles in the pileup, Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz estimates that close to 25 were directly involved in the collision, according to WIVB.  

He also added that people were trapped inside their vehicles.

Video shows the cars and trucks packed tightly on top of each other as snow continues to blow down. 

Erie County has a blizzard warning in effect up until 1am on Wednesday.

Three flights to Buffalo had to be diverted on Tuesday because of the weather.  

Bone-chilling cold gripped much of the US as 2018 began, breaking century-old records and leading to several deaths that authorities attributed to exposure to the dangerously low temperatures. 

 The National Weather Service issued wind chill advisories and freeze warnings on Tuesday covering a vast area from South Texas to Canada and from Montana through to New England.

On top of frigid temperatures across the country, a major blizzard is expected to bring more than a foot of snow and 'hurricane-force' winds to the Northeast later this week. 

Snow is expected to drop from northeastern Florida - a subtropical area - up to Canada late Wednesday and into Thursday.

The storm is known as a weather bomb, explained by The Weather Channel as a bombogenesis which involves a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure of 24 millibars or more in a period of 24 hours.