South German newspaper

US President Joe Biden has urged Americans with holiday weekend travel plans to “go now” to avoid being stranded — or worse — by a massive winter storm that will hit much of the central US. Due to a monstrous winter storm, US weather experts are talking about it bomb cyclone (German: “Bomben-Zyklone” or “Bombbogenese”), is currently covering much of the central US region with snow and freezing temperatures.

In the states of Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming, National Weather Service, the national weather service, has already measured values ​​around minus 45 degrees Celsius. In the state of Kansas, three people died in car crashes as a result of the severe winter storm. Extreme weather conditions are making highways impassable and forcing airlines to cancel thousands of flights, even as the holiday travel season is at its peak.

“If you have all your travel plans, go now. It’s no joke,” Biden said Thursday at the White House, where he was briefed on the extreme winter weather by advisers. Travelers should still have enough time and hopefully anticipate the peak of the extreme weather. “I tell my staff that if they have plans they should leave tonight or tomorrow. You can talk to me on the phone, it’s not a matter of life and death. But it will be if they don’t leave.” According to American Automobile Association (AAA) has estimated that nearly 113 million people will travel at least 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) by January 2.

More than 3,600 flights have already been cancelled

The storm, which brings snow and dangerously low temperatures, has already disrupted American travel plans ahead of Christmas. More than 3,600 flights have already been canceled in the United States, most of them in Chicago and Denver on Thursday, according to airline monitoring service FlightAware. Heading east, the storm will also impact New York’s LaGuardia Airport, where 191 Friday flights have already been canceled. Several airlines have waived fees for those wishing to rebook. Amtrak also canceled some trains in the Midwest and northern New England.

The Arctic front is remarkable for its size. Snow, blizzard, freeze and flood warnings are currently extending from Washington state to Maine and down to the Gulf of Mexico. Freezing temperatures extend to south Texas, where the temperature is expected to drop to minus 12 degrees Celsius for Dallas Thursday night. “It’s a very impressive system,” said Ashton Robinson Cook, a meteorologist at the US Weather Prediction Center. “It’s something that only happens every decade or two.”

The cold has swept across the Midwest and Texas plains and is likely to set nearly 80 nationwide records, mostly in daily lows, according to Marc Chenard, a weather forecaster at the Weather Prediction Center. In some places, wind chill, the perceived coldness of the wind, could rise to minus 65 degrees Celsius, which can be deadly to people and animals.

Western Canada is also getting extremely cold

According to the data of Environment and climate change Canada There is also an extreme cold warning for Western Canada. Across the country, winter storm warnings were issued in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime provinces. In Toronto, the country’s most populous city, forecasters are warning of severe frosts, high winds and up to 15 inches of snow by Saturday morning.

US President Joe Biden has warned people to take the storm “extremely seriously”. “It’s dangerous and threatening. This is a really, really serious time,” he said. Informed by Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service, and Deanne Criswell, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Biden said his team is ready to help and has contacted the governors of the interested states. “I urge everyone to heed local warnings. So far we have tried to contact 26 governors in the affected regions,” he said. “It’s not like a snow day when you’re a kid. This is serious stuff.”