The arctic air mass, which causes a sensation of extreme cold, will affect 200 million people, almost two thirds of the country’s population, and has left 1.5 million without electricity supply
More than 200 million Americans, almost two thirds of the country’s population, are on alert for the arrival of a brutal winter storm, with strong winds and precipitation, heavy snow and frost, which has left without electricity supply to more than 1.5 million people in the US and Canada. Cities like Chicago, whose activity is not usually affected by inclement weather despite suffering very severe winters, have adopted emergency measures, such as the closure of daycare centers and schools and the recommendation of teleworking. Meanwhile, New York, with gusty winds, torrential rain and flurries of sleet, has been registering interruptions in public transport since Thursday night, with bus lines affected in the coastal area. Rain-induced flooding has also caused road closures and power outages in the New York region, with particular impact on the waterfront areas of Queens, Long Island, New Jersey, and the Bronx.
The storm has already brought snowfall, freezing temperatures, and dangerous wind and icy conditions to mountainous areas of the West, Midwest, and South, and by Friday most of the eastern half of the US will feel the effects of an arctic air mass. , the so-called polar vortex, with an even more extreme feeling of cold. Exposure to the storm will extend today from the US-Canada border to the Gulf of Mexico. The fact that it coincides with the Christmas weekend has caused cancellations and diversions of air traffic; More than 9,000 domestic flights, scheduled for this Friday, have been canceled after the 11,000 the day before, while the roads of half the country are covered with snow and ice while civil protection personnel distribute blankets to blocked motorists. The threat of frost has also reached those of New York, due to temperatures of more than 10 degrees below zero, which will be recorded at dawn. In the Big Apple, the marked difference stands out —more than 20 degrees Celsius— between the maximum and minimum temperatures forecast for this Friday and Saturday.
President Joe Biden warned Americans on Thursday to take the storm “extremely seriously” and to follow the recommendations of the authorities. “This is really a very serious weather alert. And it goes from Oklahoma to Wyoming, and from Wyoming to Maine. And there are real consequences, so I encourage everyone to follow the warnings of local authorities,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “This is not like the snowfall we used to see when we were little, it is very serious.”
The country will record lows of -40 degrees Celsius in places like the northern Rocky Mountains, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The agency has described the storm as “once in a generation” and has forecast a “major anomalous storm” that will last through the Christmas weekend, with snow, strong winds and abnormally “dangerous” low temperatures.
The NWS indicated that there will be “a dangerous mass of unprecedented cold air” from an Arctic front that will arrive throughout the night in the United States, what is known as a polar vortex: a large mass of rotating cold air that usually encircle the Arctic, but occasionally drift south of the pole. Also Canada, accustomed to the snow and low temperatures of the season, faces extreme cold that is hitting the western provinces and that is expected to spread to the east of the country in the coming hours. The weather phenomenon will range from Nevada, part of Utah, California, Idaho, Oregon, and Wyoming, to the northern Midwest, the Great Lakes, and the central and northern Appalachians. At least seven people have died in road accidents caused by snow and ice in Kentucky, Kansas and Oklahoma, while riverine communities in the Midwest and East have been displaced by flooding.
Thousands of canceled flights
Almost 20,000 domestic flights that were scheduled for Thursday and Friday morning have been cancelled, according to the Flight Aware portal, while another 18,000 suffered significant delays. Brandon Mattis, 24, was looking for alternative routes to get to Atlanta from New York on Thursday when his flight from LaGuardia airport was cancelled. The only option is a 21-hour bus ride, also exposed to the same adverse road conditions that caused his flight to be cancelled. “Anything I can do to get there, I’ll do it,” he told Reuters. The intense rain and gusts of wind forced the New York airfield, located right next to a small bay, to completely suspend its activity at noon on Friday.
The American Automobile Association had estimated that 112 million people plan to travel 50 miles or more from their homes between Friday and January 2. These numbers represent three and a half million travelers more than on the same dates in 2021, even under the impact of covid-19. But this number will decrease due to the complications that are anticipated in the weekend. Conditions in the cities are not rosier, with widespread frosts during the early morning.
Extreme cold also poses a particular danger to animals in cattle-raising regions of the country. The multinational corporation, Tyson Foods Inc., leader in producing and selling meat in the country, declared that it had reduced its operations to protect employees and animals. The storm has forced at least six refineries, including the most important in the country, to stop their production of gasoline, diesel and other derivatives, according to the Oil Price Information Service.