A powerful winter storm is forecast across much of the United States this weekend, threatening to wreak havoc even as tens of millions of Americans travel for the holidays.
After a year marked by inflation and with more austere tables for Thanksgiving celebrations, the Christmas festivities are awaited in November by millions of people eager to celebrate as a family.
Diseases, such as the covid that threatens again in various countries, or inflation do not prevent Americans from taking the highways or going to airports. But a huge winter storm could disrupt their plans.
But the country is bracing for the strongest storms and coldest days in decades, according to experts consulted by the BBC.
“The storm system will be significant and disruptive,” the National Weather Service (NWS) announced.
The storm, the agency continued, will generate a multitude of meteorological phenomena Over the next few days, heavy snow, storms and dangerously cold temperatures will spread from the Intermountain West to the Great Plains, Great Lakes and central Appalachians.
It’s “a once-in-a-lifetime storm,” the NWS office in Buffalo, New York, warned on Twitter.
More than 90 million people live in warning areas in 37 states. And about 80 percent of the country will experience freezing temperatures, even in southern states like Texas, the BBC reported.
“Cyclonic Bomb”
The Midwest and the Great Lakes region will be particularly hard hit this weekend with blizzards. And in the Great Plains region the temperature should drop very sharply in a few hours and reach -55°C.
“A cold of this magnitude could cause frostbite on exposed skin within minutes, as well as hypothermia and death if the exposure is prolonged,” the NWS warned.
The gusts of wind can blow up to 80 kilometers per hour, causing the possible fall of trees and power outages.
Private weather site AccuWeather warns about possible formation of a “cyclone bomb”due to the meeting of the polar air with a warmer air mass, generating a very rapid pressure drop.
These weather conditions will be “very dangerous” travel, the NWS warned.
As early as Wednesday, high winds and snow threatened to cause delays at Minneapolis airports and slow air traffic in Denver and Chicago, the US aviation authority, the FAA, warned.
complicated journeys
But as of Thursday, millions of Americans are expected at airports across the country, with a holiday season projected to be “busier” than 2021, by return “to pre-pandemic levels”according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
United Airlines has “encouraged” its customers to check the status of their flights, and even change them “free of charge”.
The routes also promise to be busy, as an estimated 102 million people will need to drive to where they’ll be spending their vacations, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).
In total, some 112 million people will have to walk at least 80 km between December 23 and January 2, according to this organisation, the third-highest figure since counts began in 2000.
Cold weather watches that stretch from the Canadian border to the Texas Gulf Coast have already been issued in parts of at least 26 states, according to the NWS.
The snow is not the most worrying thing about this storm, but the cold and the wind.
The heaviest snowfall is expected in the Great Lakes region Wednesday night through Friday, with just over 12 inches of snow expected.
In February 2021, a freezing cold hit Texas in particular, causing a spike in energy use followed by massive power outages that lasted for several days.
This time, the weather services have tried to be reassuring in this state: temperatures in Texas should be cooler and shorter in duration than that episode.
Source: AFP
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Source: Clarin
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.