Washington/New York. A Christmas fairy tale for some, a nightmarish vacation for others: A severe winter storm in the USA has caused low temperatures and a lot of snow – and has also hampered travel plans in many places. For some, extreme conditions are deadly. Much of the US is experiencing the coldest Christmas in decades. A winter storm not only brought heavy snow and freezing winds, but also temperatures down to minus 40 degrees Celsius. In the east coast metropolis of New York, the thermometer marked minus 14 degrees on Saturday morning, in Chicago it was minus 17. The number of deaths rose to 17 on Saturday night (local time), as reported by the Nbc broadcaster, citing local authority. In almost all cases, the cause is a weather-related traffic accident. Other broadcasters have also reported double-digit numbers of fatalities related to weather-related traffic accidents. According to the US Weather Service, the region around the five Great Lakes in the northeast of the country, bordering Canada, was particularly hard hit, and the storm moved east of the country on Saturday.
1.6 million households without electricity
On Saturday morning (local time), more than 1.6 million households were temporarily left without electricity, the PowerOutage website showed. There have been power outages, especially on the east coast. The Arctic cold front has also disrupted many travelers’ Christmas plans: according to flight data site FlightAware, nearly 6,000 flights were canceled on Friday and nearly 2,000 on Saturday morning. New York, with its approximately eight million inhabitants, has experienced a rare drop in temperature on Friday : within a few hours, the thermometer dropped from plus 11 to minus 12 degrees. In the morning the New Yorkers had gone in light jackets and without gloves to do their last Christmas shopping. In the afternoon and evening, however, restaurants and bars remained unusually empty for the evening before the holidays, with many people preferring to huddle indoors.
impossible journey
In Erie County, south of the Great Lakes in upstate New York, emergency services were sometimes overwhelmed. Marc Poloncarz, the district manager, invited on Twitter to call the emergency number only in “the most critical and life-threatening cases” to keep the lines free. He urged residents to stay in their homes despite power and heating outages. Transportation to emergency shelters is currently nearly impossible. The US Weather Service has urged travelers to exercise extreme caution over the Christmas weekend and warned of so-called whiteout conditions, meaning severely limited visibility and orientation due to snow. Traveling in these conditions is “extremely dangerous and sometimes impossible,” he said. There was also a low temperature alarm. In the state of Montana, minus 40 degrees Celsius was measured early Saturday morning. It was said that even a few minutes in the cold could lead to frostbite.
Angry sports reporter
A sportscaster for local broadcaster KWWL shot to national fame when he was unceremoniously assigned as a weather reporter for reporting from the freezing cold of Iowa in the Midwest on Thursday. With each live change, Mark Woodley grew grumpier. When the announcer asked how he felt outside, Woodley replied, “Like eight minutes ago when you asked me earlier.” Woodley used the gear stick all morning to express his displeasure: “What better reason to ask the sportswriter to come five hours earlier than he normally would wake up, faced with the wind, snow and cold and tell the others not to do the same?” He said he didn’t even know it was 3:30 in the morning until that day.
Temperatures around minus 45 degrees Celsius
Before the Christmas weekend, more than 200 million people had already received severe weather warnings due to Storm “Elliott”. The northern and midwestern United States were the first to be affected. But there have also been warnings of extreme frost in the country’s southern states. On the night of Christmas Eve, the storm moved more to the east of the country. Several states, including New York, have declared states of emergency. “Mother Nature is asking for all that she has to offer this weekend,” said New York Governor Kathy Hochul.- a weather phenomenon in which air pressure drops extremely in a short period of time and increases force of the storm. Temperatures of minus 45 degrees Celsius had already been measured the day before Christmas in the states of Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming. According to meteorologists, temperatures in Denver, Colorado dropped about 40 degrees in 24 hours as the arctic cold front passed.
