Tens of millions of Americans endured bone-chilling temperatures, blizzard conditions, power outages, and canceled holiday flights as a monstrous winter storm continues to wreak havoc through the holiday weekend with temperatures as low as -40 degrees.
Forecasters said the wind storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, exposing about 60% of the U.S. population to some sort of winter weather advisory or warning. More than 200 million people were under an advisory or warning on Friday, the National Weather Service said.
At least 17 people have died amid subzero temperatures, high winds, and heavy snow in multiple parts of the country. Two people died inside their homes when emergency responders could not reach them in Erie County. Other deaths were mostly weather-related car accidents. A 46-car pileup on the Ohio Turnpike left four people dead and others injured, according to authorities. The deaths occurred in Ohio, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, and Vermont.
- 17 killed in heavy snow conditions
- 181 million people are under wind chill warnings or advisories
- More than 11 million people are under blizzard warnings
- 58 million people face winter storm warnings
- More than 500,000 people are under ice storm warnings.
Cheyenne, Wyoming, saw its temperature plunge 40 degrees colder in 30 minutes on Wednesday.
Power outages
Power outages have left about 1.8 million homes and businesses in the dark, according to the website PowerOutage, which tracks utility reports. In Georgia, hundreds of people in Atlanta and northern parts of the state were without power and facing the possibility of sub-zero wind chills without heat.
Holiday flights and gatherings canceled
Extreme cold and powerful winds are wreaking havoc on holiday travelers. Nearly 5,000 flights within, into, or out of the U.S. were canceled Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware, causing more mayhem as travelers try to make it home for the holidays. Major airports in Cleveland, Buffalo and Chicago reported by Friday morning that more than half of their departing flights were canceled.
‘Once in a generation’ winter storm
A major winter storm and cold blast impacting nearly every state has brought what the National Weather Service is calling a “once in a generation type event” known as a “bomb cyclone”. The name comes from “bombogenesis” which occurs when a fast-developing storm rapidly intensifies, causing atmospheric pressure to quickly drop in a 24-hour period. Bombogenesis creates a bomb cyclone.
“It’s kind of a refrigerator that stores that cold air,” said Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations for the Weather Prediction Center at the National Weather Service. “Every once in a while, you break a dam, so to speak, and that cold air can spread south.”
