A “perilous winter storm,” as North American meteorology calls it, is affecting much of the United States, with millions of people without power or travel over Christmas.
More than 200 million people were under some type of winter weather watch or warning Friday because they are in areas where the effects of the storm are occurring or expected, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
The weather service map “represents one of the largest ranges of winter weather warnings and advisories in history,” the meteorologists said in a statement, quoted by the US agency AP.
This major storm, which occurs “once in a generation,” according to the NWS, began to affect the Midwest, but today it is intensifying and is already spreading to the east, both north and south.
More than 458,000 homes and businesses lost power by morning, according to the AP. As of this Friday morning, more than 3,400 flights had been cancelled, many of them in large cities such as New York, Detroit, Seattle, Chicago, Denver and Boston, according to data from the FlightAware aviation website, the Spanish news agency EFE reported.
Three regional airports and one international airport (Michigan) closed and several suspended takeoff operations, according to data from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) ‘website’.
Transportation problems are also affecting train and bus companies, such as Greyhound, the largest of which has already warned that many routes in the Northeast or Midwest could be canceled or disrupted.
The huge storm spread from border to border, according to AP. In Canada, WestJet canceled all flights today at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
In Mexico, migrants huddled near the US border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a US Supreme Court ruling on the lifting of restrictions passed during the covid-19 pandemic that prevent Many apply for asylum.
On its website, the NWS warned of the extraordinary nature of this “immense storm” and announced that heavy rain would affect much of the country, especially the east, during the day.
He warned, among other inclemencies, of the powerful “arctic front” that hits much of the eastern part of the country, of heavy snowfall that will cover the Great Lakes region and the New England area, and of “significant precipitation” that could also cross the northwest.
Meteorologists even expect a bomb cyclone to develop, when air pressure drops very rapidly into a severe storm, near the Great Lakes.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, appeared publicly on Thursday to warn the public to take the storm “extremely seriously” and urge them to follow the recommendations of the authorities.
“This is not like a snow day when you were a kid,” Biden declared in the Oval Office of the White House after a meeting with federal officials.
“This is something serious,” warned the president of the United States.
Source: TSF
