Much of the United States is preparing for a “once-in-a-generation” winter stormas described by the National Weather Service (NWS), which mainly affects the Midwest of the country and moves to the Northeast.
US President Joe Biden warned Americans on Thursday to take the storm “extremely seriously” and to follow the recommendations of the authorities. “This is really a very serious weather alert. And it goes from Oklahoma to Wyoming, and from Wyoming to Maine. And there are real consequences, so I encourage everyone, everyone to please follow the local advisories,” he told reporters from the Oval Office.
Biden stressed that this is not like a normal snow day, but that it is something “serious”, while revealing that his government has tried to contact the 26 governors of the affected states.
According to local media, temperatures as low as -59°F (-50°C) have been reached in northern Idaho, while some of the main cities of the country will face extreme conditions on Friday with -34 °F (-36.6 °C) in Chicago (Illinois), -32 °F (-35 °C) in Minneapolis (Minnesota) and – 21°F (-29°C) in Denver, Colorado.
In its latest update on Thursday, the NWS forecast a “major freak storm” over the weekend, with snow, strong winds and “dangerous” low temperatures.
The weather phenomenon will range from the northern Great Basin, a watershed that encompasses Nevada, part of Utah and California, Idaho, Oregon and Wyoming, to the northern Midwest, the Great Lakes and the central and northern Appalachians.
The NWS indicated that there will be “a dangerous mass of unprecedented cold air” by an Arctic front which will hit the Ohio and Tennessee valleys tonight.
According to the Flightaware website, there have been a total of 1,724 flight cancellations within, to or from the US this Thursday. The airports most affected by the cancellations are O’Hare in Chicago, Chicago Midway and Denver.
Airlines have warned that snow, icy winds and low temperatures might affect travel from Seattle, on the west coast of the country, to Boston, in the northeast, or North Carolina, in the south.
Such are the weather conditions that even a country like Canadaaccustomed to snow and low winter temperatures, faces a extreme unusual cold which is hitting the western provinces and which is expected to spread to the east in the coming hours, with abundant snow and winds.
With information from EFE
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