On This Date: America's Most Incredible Cold Outbreak | Weather.com

 

That was an interesting article until they said that trusses on the Brooklyn Bridge contracted 14 feet. I could believe 14 inches but not 14 feet.

 

Brings back the old Physics class. Mass Coefficient Delta Temperature = MCDT. The Brooklyn bridge is 6000 feet long, so 14 feet is only 0.20% of the total distance. Seems unlikely, but who knows.

 

A truss is not the whole bridge. It is just one section of steel. So maybe 100 feet. so around ~30 meters
but lets for a moment assume it was -40°C ( or F)
A warm day is only 34°C so that would be 74° of swing.
The coefficient of expansion for steel is on the order of 13x10-6 per degree C.
It just can't have that kind of impact. that hundred foot piece of steel would contract 0.028 meters about an inch or so.

Now let's assume the author wasn't real clever and confused trusses with cables.
The cables holding up the bridge are continuous. 1,000 meters of cable could contract a meter.
It's longer but still not 14 ft.