US braces for extremely dangerous winter storm as flights cancel
US braces for extremely dangerous winter storm as flights cancel. Heavy snow and freezing rain will affect over 200 million Americans.
As it moves eastward from the High Plains and Rockies, the storm is swooping across a large portion of the United States, leaving behind extremely dangerous conditions.
Wind chills and below-freezing temperatures will “pose a life-threatening risk of hypothermia and frostbite to exposed skin” due to the Arctic blast.
Travel disruptions for Tourists, delays, and cancellations over the weekend for Road and Air Transport in a number of major cities.
What is the expected course of the storm?
The winter storm will spread slowly across the United States, bringing snow to cities such as Memphis, Nashville, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York.
The Southern Rockies and Plains, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Northeast will all experience heavy snowfall.
The NWS Probabilistic Precipitation Portal indicates that areas from Boston to West Virginia to Colorado might receive more than a foot of snow.
The NWS forecasts that between 10 and 14 inches of snow could fall in some areas of northeast New Jersey and southeast New York.
New York City, inclusive beginning early on Sunday and continuing through Monday.
Additionally, according to the service, windchills as low as -10F (-23C) are predicted for the same area on Saturday day.
According to NWS, the majority of southern New England, including Boston, may anticipate 12 to 17 inches of snow with wind gusts of up to 30 mph on Sunday and Monday.
On Saturday, wind chill temperatures might drop as low as -15F (-26C).
The NWS predicts that many low temperature records will be broken, with the coldest wind chills possibly dropping to -50F (-46C) in the Northern Plains.
Freezing temperatures are also predicted for a considerably larger region of the southeast United States.
On this Saturday morning, sleet and ice are already falling in some areas of North Texas.
In what ways are states getting ready for the storm?
States of emergency have been proclaimed by governors in a number of US states, including Arkansas, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
This has allowed emergency officials, including National Guard troops, to start organizing response actions.
No part of the state will be “immune from feeling the effect of Mother Nature’s wrath,” according to New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
Hochul advises locals to work from home, prepare ahead of time by stocking up on supplies and necessities, and exercise caution when shovelling snow since it can raise the risk of a heart attack.
When two inches of snow have accumulated, the city will send 2,200 snow plows, 700 salt spreaders, and thousands of sanitation workers this weekend. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani advises New Yorkers to stay at home if at all possible, even if buses and subways will be running this weekend.
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas stated on Thursday that there is “no expectation whatsoever” that the state’s electrical grid will malfunction, as it did during a significant storm in 2021 that claimed hundreds of lives.
“The local power providers have never been more prepared for any winter storm ever,” Abbott states.
He adds that there might be some local power outages brought on by falling ice and snow, but he emphasised that this would not be the same as a widespread grid breakdown.
State of emergency
A state of emergency is declared in 16 states for Tourist to monitor prior to the storm.
Due to cancellation worries, some airlines have allowed passengers to rearrange their flights, sometimes without paying additional expenses.
FlightAware, a flight tracker, reports that over 3,200 flights into or out of the United States have already been canceled for Saturday and over 4,800 flights for Sunday.
Travel is predicted to be “nearly impossible during the peak of the storm,” according to NWS meteorologists Rich Otto and Tony Fracasso.
He advises drivers to avoid driving over the weekend, according to CBS, the BBC’s US news.
In the meantime, Canada is already experiencing cold temperatures, and meteorologist Geoff Coulson told CBC earlier this week that snowfall is predicted in eastern and Atlantic provinces on Monday.
The NWS Weather Prediction Center predicts that a powerful arctic air mass originating in Canada will keep temperatures in the eastern United States freezing throughout next week, even after the storm sweeps through the country this weekend.
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