4,000 Flights Cancelled As US Hit By Arctic 'Bomb Cyclone', Warned Of Coldest Christmas Days On Record
The holiday travel plans of millions of Americans and those who had plans to visit the country for Christmas and New Year have been thrown into limbo by a snowstorm.
A "once-in-a-generation" winter storm with temperatures as low as -4 degrees Celsius hit parts of the US on Thursday, causing widespread chaos.
Flights cancelled, roads covered in snow
Snow, rain, ice, wind and frigid temperatures are disrupting air travel plans across the United States and bus and Amtrak passenger train service.
The impacts are being felt hardest in Chicago and Denver, where around a quarter of arrivals and departures -- hundreds of flights at each airport -- were cancelled on Thursday,
Once in a lifetime cold
Leading into the holiday weekend, the impending storm was expected to bring blizzard conditions to the Great Lakes region, heavy rains followed by a flash freeze on the East Coast, wind gusts of 60 miles per hour (100 kph) and bitter cold as far south as the Mexican border.
As the storm took shape over the Great Lakes on Thursday, a weather phenomenon known as a bomb cyclone was likely to develop from a "rapidly deepening low-pressure" system, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
The cyclone could spawn snowfalls of a half inch (1.25 cm) per hour and howling winds from the Upper Midwest to the interior Northeast, producing near-zero visibility, the weather service said.
Frostbite within minutes
Combined with the arctic cold, wind-chill factors as low as 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (minus 40 Celsius) were forecast in the High Plains, the northern Rockies and Great Basin, the NWS said. Exposure to such conditions without adequate protection can cause frostbite within minutes.
By afternoon, well over half of the Lower 48 states, from Washington state to Florida, were under wind-chill alerts and other winter weather advisories affecting more than 200 million people, or roughly 60% of the U.S. population, the weather service reported.
Coldest Christmas on record
The NWS map of looming weather hazards on Thursday, stretching from border to border and coast to coast, "depicts one of the greatest extends of winter weather warnings and advisories ever," the agency said.
According to officials, the upcoming Christmas could be the coldest ever recorded in the US
"It's dangerous and threatening," President Joe Biden said at the White House, urging Americans with travel plans to not delay and to set off on Thursday. "This is not like a snow day, when you were a kid, this is serious stuff."
(With inputs from agencies)
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