Tens of millions of Americans have endured bone-chilling temperatures, blizzard conditions, power outages and cancelled holidays after a winter storm that forecasters said was nearly unprecedented in its scope.
The conditions exposed 60% of the US population – more than 200 million people – to some sort of winter weather advisory or warning.
The US National Weather Service’s map “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever”, forecasters said.
More than 3,100 flights within, into or out of the US were cancelled on Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware, causing more mayhem as travellers try to make it home for the Christmas holidays. More than 350,000 homes and businesses were without power on Friday morning.
The huge storm stretched from border to border.
In Canada, WestJet cancelled all flights on Friday at Toronto Pearson International Airport, beginning at 9am. And in Mexico, migrants waited near the US border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a US supreme court decision on whether and when to lift pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum.
“This is not like a snow day when you were a kid,” US President Joe Biden warned in the Oval Office after a briefing from federal officials. “This is serious stuff.”
Forecasters are expecting a bomb cyclone – when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm – to develop near the Great Lakes. That will stir up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
The cold also led to a high demand at homeless shelters, including in Detroit, where some shelters were at capacity on Thursday.
And in Portland, Oregon, officials opened four emergency shelters.
Courtney Dodds, a spokeswoman for the Union Gospel Mission, said teams from her organisation had been going out to try to persuade people to seek shelter.
“It can be really easy for people to doze off and fall asleep and wind up losing their lives because of the cold weather,” she said.
In famously snowy Buffalo, New York, forecasters predicted a “once-in-a-generation storm” because of heavy lake-effect snow, wind gusts as high as 65mph, whiteouts and the potential for extensive power outages.
Mayor Byron Brown urged people to stay at home, while the NHL hockey league postponed the Buffalo Sabres’ home game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Denver, also no stranger to winter storms, was the coldest it has been in 32 years on Thursday, when the temperature dropped to minus 31C in the morning at the airport.
