After a holiday season marked by particularly mild temperatures, Washington and its region faced a winter storm on Monday, with snow leading to the closure of federal services and schools, the stopping of buses, and further disruption to air traffic.
Snow-capped Capitol Dome, White House under a white blanket of flakes: between 12 and more than 25 cm of snow is expected to fall on the US capital, warned US meteorological services, placing the city, as well as the neighboring state of Virginia under a winter storm alert until 4:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. GMT).
“Be prepared for snowy and slippery roads, making it difficult to travel,” they added in a bulletin.
The winter storm sweeping much of the US East Coast, with strong winds adding to heavy snowfall, might also lead to “scattered power cuts”, and potential “snow storms” and “floods” , specified the meteorological services of the country.
Faced with the elements, the government announced the shutdown of federal services in the city of Washington, resulting in the cancellation of the daily White House press conference while the only vote of the day scheduled in the Senate is expected to be canceled and postponed see you on Tuesday.
The city of Washington has also announced the stop of bus traffic, as well as the closure of COVID-19 testing centers and the suspension of the distribution of rapid tests.
Many schools were also closed Monday due to snow across the Washington, Maryland and Virginia area.
The winter storm also accentuated the chaos that had already reigned in air traffic in the United States for weeks because of the outbreak of contamination due to the Omicron variant.
Ronald-Reagan National Airport and Washington-Dulles Airport, as well as Baltimore Airport in particular had many flight cancellations, according to the Flightaware website.
As of 11:00 a.m. Monday (4:00 p.m. GMT), at least 2,164 domestic or international flights to or from the United States had been canceled, almost as many as the 2,650 flights canceled on Sunday and the 2,570 flights canceled on Saturday, according to the same. source.
This is more than half of the nearly 3,641 flights canceled worldwide at the same time.
The winter storm is added to the very contagious Omicron variant which prevents many pilots or flight or ground personnel, sick or in case of contact, from coming to work.
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