According to media reports, an estimated 250 million people in the US and Canada are affected by extreme weather, especially in the eastern two-thirds of the states, according to the US weather service National Weather Service (NWS). The NWS maintains the weather alert from Sunday morning through Tuesday.
Until then, arctic air masses, winter storms and heavy snowfall make for the coldest Christmas season in North America in a long time. According to the BBC, the storm front stretches over 3,000 kilometers from the US state of Texas to Quebec, Canada.
Widespread power outages
According to reports from American media such as NBC, at least 23 people have died so far, most of them in traffic accidents. According to the American website PowerOutage, which reports power outages, up to 1.6 million homes in the US and Canada were without power on Saturday. The storm and snow broke the cables.
Warning of extreme road conditions
The US weather service urged travelers to exercise extreme caution over the Christmas weekend and warned of extremely poor visibility due to whiteouts, restricted visibility and orientation due to heavy snowfall. Traveling under these conditions is “extremely dangerous and sometimes impossible,” he said.
AP/The Gazette/Nick Rohlman Barely visible on roads during snowstorm
The NWS also warned of extremely low temperatures combined with high wind speeds, which can lead to frostbite after just a few minutes in the cold without adequate protection. In the state of Montana, in the northwest of the USA, minus 45 degrees were measured over the weekend.
Victims of Cold Claims in the US
The United States is currently extremely cold. The arctic winter storm continues through Christmas weekend. So far, 23 people have died, mostly in traffic accidents.
emergency services collapsed
In Erie County, south of the Great Lakes in upstate New York, emergency services were sometimes overwhelmed. Marc Poloncarz, responsible for civil protection in the district, called on Twitter to call the emergency number only in “the most critical and life-threatening cases”, in order to keep the lines free.
APA/AFP/Getty Images/Jon Cherry’s emergency rooms in the city of Louisville (Kentucky)
He urged residents to stay in their homes despite power and heating outages. “This is a life-threatening situation,” he told US broadcaster CNN on Saturday night. “It is not something to play with.” According to media reports, the snow was more than 70 cm deep in Buffalo, also in the state of New York. The local airport must remain closed until at least Monday.
Portal/Lindsay Dedario Winds and freezing temperatures have carved bizarre sculptures into the waves of Lake Erie
Governor Kathy Hochul has deployed the National Guard to Erie and Buffalo County, on the border with Canada – officials say emergency services there have all but collapsed due to the heavy snowstorm. Countless vehicles were stuck on the roads with meter-high snowdrifts.
Thousands of canceled flights
The cold front from the Arctic has upset the Christmas plans of many travelers: according to the flight data website FlightAware, almost 6,000 flights had already been canceled on Friday and on Saturday there were almost 3,000 again. American media, citing weather experts, saw in some places the conditions for a “cyclone bomb”: a weather phenomenon in which the air pressure drops extremely in a short period of time and increases the strength of the storm.