Cyclists navigate a snowy sidewalk in Iowa City, Iowa.
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Cyclists navigate a snowy sidewalk in Iowa City, Iowa.
Swathes of the United States are bracing for more snow and extremely low temperatures on Wednesday, as millions of people in the east recover from a previous round of severe winter weather that left at least five people dead.
The latest storm, already bringing precipitation to the west, is expected to cross the country this week, causing an arctic blast to northern regions and prompting weather advisories or warnings in dozens of states, from California to Maine.
“A strong Arctic front will move southward from Canada on Wednesday, ushering in the coldest temperatures so far this season for the Northern Plains, with subzero temperatures becoming a reality for the Montana and the Dakotas, and maximum temperatures remaining below freezing as far south as Oklahoma by Friday,” the National Weather Service (NWS) said in a statement.
That’s on top of severe storms that brought tornadoes in the South, dangerous flooding in the East and blizzards in the Great Lakes region and elsewhere, disrupting thousands of people. commercial flights and encourage governors to declare a state of emergency.
More than 400,000 customers were without power as of mid-morning Wednesday, including 140,000 in New York state, according to monitoring site Poweroutage.us, down from nearly 900,000 customers nationwide who were without power Tuesday evening.
The NWS forecasts “several feet of heavy snow and strong winds with gusts reaching 60 mph” (96 kilometers per hour) through Wednesday in the northwest Cascades and parts of the Rocky Mountains, with the storm then heading east and bringing “blizzard conditions” to the Midwest.
Meanwhile, tornadoes ripped through the Florida Panhandle on Tuesday, where drone footage showed downed trees and damaged buildings with roofs torn off.
At least five storm-related deaths were recorded, including an 81-year-old Alabama woman whose mobile home was reportedly struck by a tornado.
The weather was already having a heavy impact on flights, with more than 659 cancellations and 1,300 delayed in the United States as of early Wednesday, the monitoring site FlightAware.com reported.
Scientists say that as humanity continues to warm the planet by burning fossil fuels, weather patterns will become increasingly unpredictable.