A monster storm barreling across swathes of the US has killed at least 10 people and prompted warnings to stay off the roads, mass flight cancelations and power outages, as freezing conditions persisted into yesterday.
As the storm dumped snow, sleet and freezing rain across the wide expanse, officials cautioned that an arctic air mass behind the system would see temperatures fall dangerously low for days, prolonging disruptions to daily life.
The US National Weather Service (NWS) told Americans to expect more of the same weather conditions into yesterday morning.
Photo: AFP
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said five people were found dead outside over the weekend in freezing temperatures.
While he did not confirm the deaths were weather-related, he told reporters “there is no more powerful reminder of the danger of extreme cold.”
In Texas, authorities confirmed three deaths, including a 16-year-old girl killed in a sledding accident.
Photo: AFP
Two people died in Louisiana from hypothermia, the southern state’s health department said.
The PowerOutage.com tracking site showed more than 840,000 customers without electricity as of Sunday night, mostly in the US south where the storm intensified on Saturday.
In Tennessee, where a band of ice has downed power lines, more than 300,000 residential and commercial customers were without electricity, while Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia — where such storms are less common — each had more than 100,000 outages.
The outages are particularly dangerous, as the south is being walloped by treacherous cold that the NWS warns could set records.
Authorities from Texas to North Carolina and New York urged residents to stay home due to the perilous conditions.
“Stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary,” Texas’s Emergency Management Division posted on X.
The storm was moving on Sunday into the northeast, dumping snow and sleet on heavily populated cities, including Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
At least 20 states and the US capital, Washington, have declared states of emergency.
Residents in Washington awoke to a blanket of several inches of snow on sidewalks and roads, followed by heavy sleet.
Federal offices were pre-emptively closed yesterday.
Several major airports in Washington, Philadelphia and New York had nearly all flights canceled for the day.
Tracking site Flightaware.com showed more than 19,000 flights into and out of the country had been scrapped since Saturday.
US President Donald Trump, who was riding out the storm at the White House, said on his Truth Social platform on Saturday: “We will continue to monitor, and stay in touch with all States in the path of this storm. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm!”
The brutal storm system is the result of a stretched polar vortex, an arctic region of cold, low-pressure air that normally forms a relatively compact, circular system, but sometimes morphs into a more oval shape, sending cold air spilling across North America.
Scientists say the increasing frequency of such disruptions might be linked to climate change, though the debate is not settled and natural variability plays a role.
However, Trump — who scoffs at climate change science and has rolled back green energy policies — questioned how the cold front fit into broader climatic shifts.
“WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???” he posted.
The NWS warned that heavy ice could cause “long-duration power outages, extensive tree damage, and extremely dangerous or impassable travel conditions,” including in many states less accustomed to intense winter weather.
Authorities warned of life-threatening cold that could last a week post-storm, especially in the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, where wind chill lows were forecast to dip to extremes under minus-50oF (minus-45oC).
Such temperatures can cause frostbite within minutes.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
A grieving mother has ended her life at a clinic in Switzerland four years after the death of her only child. Wendy Duffy, 56, a physically healthy woman, died at the Pegasos clinic in Basel after struggling to cope with the death of her 23-year-old son, Marcus. The former care worker, from the West Midlands, England, had previously attempted to take her own life. The case comes as assisted dying would not become law in England and Wales after proposed legislation, branded “hopelessly flawed” by opponents, ran out of time. Ruedi Habegger, the founder of Pegasos, described Duffy’s death as
From post offices and parks to stations and even the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan’s vending machines are ubiquitous, but with the rapid pace of inflation cooling demand for their drinks, operators are being forced to rethink the business. Last month beverage giant DyDo Group Holdings announced it would remove about 20,000 vending machines — about 7 percent of their stock nationwide — by January next year, to “reconstruct a profitable network.” Pokka Sapporo Food & Beverage, based in Nagoya, also said last month it would sell its 40,000-machine operation to Osaka-based Lifedrink Co. “The strength of the vending machine
RSS