(Chicago) A winter storm of rare intensity swept the United States on Friday, freezing and dangerous conditions which disrupted transport in a large part of the country on the eve of Christmas, thousands of flights being canceled.
As of dawn Friday, “more than 240 million people in the United States [soit plus de 70 % de la population] are affected by “winter weather alerts”, writes the American weather service (NWS) in its national forecast bulletin, “one of the most important ever published”.
Very dangerous conditions to move around, warn the authorities. But millions of Americans were expected to hit the roads and airports for the holiday season, with a return to pre-pandemic levels.
Friday morning, the specialized site Flightaware had more than 3,290 canceled flights in the United States, the most affected airports being those of Seattle, New York, Detroit, Chicago and Denver.
PHOTO KEREM YÜCEL, MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO VIA AP
The storm caused delays at Bloomington, Minnesota airport on Thursday.
By Thursday, about 10% of flights had been canceled, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday morning on MSNBC. “Several of the biggest air hubs are affected,” he added.
“Please take this storm extremely seriously,” President Joe Biden urged Thursday. “I encourage everyone […] to listen to warnings at the local level,” he added. ” It is serious “.
In storm-hit Oklahoma on Thursday, two people died on the road. In total, about 112 million people must drive at least 80 kilometers between December 23 and January 2, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).
Frost on the coast
Several states have declared states of emergency, such as New York, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Georgia and North Carolina.
The phenomenon extends “from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande [à la frontière mexicaine] », and from the Pacific coast in the North-West to the Atlantic coast in the East, note the American meteorologists.
This low pressure system is caused, in a fairly classic way, by a powerful conflict between two air masses: one very cold from the Arctic and the other tropical from the Gulf of Mexico.
A depression is a system of low atmospheric pressure, often synonymous with bad weather: its dynamics lead to updrafts that cause clouds and precipitation. What makes the current case extraordinary is that the atmospheric pressure this time dropped very quickly, in less than 24 hours.
PHOTO DAVID ZALUBOWSKI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sometimes dizzying temperature drops have been observed, as in Denver where the thermometer lost 33 degrees on Thursday in just 7 hours, recording with -31 degrees its coldest temperature since 1990.
The US weather forecast includes temperatures felt as low as -40°C in the north of the country by midday on Friday, and freezing temperatures as far as the Texas coast.
Several cold records have already been broken: -53°C in western Canada, -38°C in Minnesota, but also further south, where temperatures are usually milder at this time of year. , -13°C in Dallas or -8°C in Houston.
This movement causes heavy snowfall in the north of the country, especially in the Great Lakes region.
Nearly a million Americans were without electricity on Friday morning, especially in the south-east of the country (Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Connecticut as well), according to the specialized site Poweroutage.us.
In North Dakota, major traffic arteries are closed “due to snow and wind, with areas of almost non-existent visibility and icy conditions”, state authorities note, advising travelers not to take the road. in these conditions.
The cold has prompted some people to embark on the “boiling water challenge”, or challenge of boiling water: they publish videos in which they throw very hot water in the air to see it crystallize immediately.