Large parts of the United States were hit again on Wednesday by heavy rain and snow caused by a winter storm that has already killed five people and left hundreds of thousands of homes without power.
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• Also read: Icy rain, sleet, snow: almost 27,000 households are without power because of the storm
“A strong Arctic front is moving south from Canada on Wednesday and this will herald the arrival of the lowest temperatures so far this season for the Northern Plains region, with temperatures below -18 ° C in several central states near Canada, warned the National Weather Service NWS.
By Friday, the thermometer will also fall below 0 ° C as far south as Oklahoma, he added in a press release.
The NWS also predicts significant flooding along the Atlantic Coast.
AFP
According to local authorities, at least three people died in the storm in the south of the country.
An octogenarian woman in Alabama died when a tornado swept away her mobile home, causing it to flip over several times, according to Houston County authorities.
AFP
Two more people died in road accidents in the north of the country, partly due to weather conditions.
Blizzard
In an interview with local media, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy urged residents not to underestimate the storm, calling it “unusual.”
Tornadoes hit the Southeast, including Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 49 counties. Drone footage showed trees lying on the ground and buildings with roofs torn off.
AFP
According to the monitoring site Poweroutage.us, more than 400,000 homes and businesses remained without power on Wednesday, mostly in the east of the country, although fewer than the previous day when around 900,000 homes and businesses had power.
In the northwestern U.S., the winter storm “will continue to bring heavy snowfall across several mountain ranges today,” the NWS warned, while “blizzard conditions will continue along the west coast of Alaska.”
Getty Images via AFP
This bad weather also had a major impact on air travel: According to the website FlightAware.com, more than 650 flights departing or arriving in the United States were canceled and more than 10,000 were delayed on Wednesday.
Vice President Kamala Harris' plane, Air Force 2, also had to take a detour Tuesday to land further from the coast.