Vehicles drive along a highway during a winter storm in Cincinnati.Credit: AP
Car wrecks start
The US National Weather Service warned that road travel could be “very difficult to impossible”.
By Sunday, dozens of car accidents had been reported in Virginia, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, and Kentucky, where a state trooper was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after his police car was hit on Interstate 65.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who declared a state emergency ahead of the storm, said state buildings would be closed on Monday.
Snow falls on the roofs of the half-timbered houses in the historic city centre in Freudenberg, Germany.Credit: AP
“We see far too many wrecks out there for people that do not have to be on the roads, so I want to ask: stay inside. Stay safe with your family. Let the road crews do their work,” the governor said in a video posted to social media.
“We want to make sure that nobody gets hurt and everybody gets through this safely, so please look out for each other.”
Governors in Missouri and Arkansas also declared states of emergency.
Air and rail travel
The storms also caused havoc for US railways, leading to numerous cancellations. More than 20 cancellations were planned on Sunday, 40 for Monday, and at least two for Tuesday.
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“If local authorities are telling people not to travel, it’s counterintuitive to try to run a full slate of services when people are being told to stay home,” US rail network Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said. “Likewise, we know our people are going to have trouble getting in to work.”
The Midwest was hit especially hard. A train between Chicago and New York and several regional trains between Chicago and St Louis were among those cancelled on Sunday.
Nearly 200 flights in and out of St Louis Lambert International Airport were cancelled, according to tracking platform FlightAware.
Temperatures dip
Starting on Monday, the eastern two-thirds of the country will experience dangerous, bone-chilling cold and wind chills, forecasters said. Temperatures could be 7 to 14 degrees below normal.
In Chicago on Sunday, temperatures hovered in the single digits (minus 7 to minus 12) and around zero in Minneapolis, while dropping to minus 23 in International Falls, Minnesota, on the Canadian border.
The north-eastern states are more likely to experience several days of cold following what has mostly been a mild start to winter, said Jon Palmer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine. A plume of cold air coming down from Canada is likely to result in a cold but dry week, he said.
Source link : https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/polar-vortex-blasts-north-america-and-europe-with-snow-20250106-p5l295.html
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Publish date : 2025-01-04 23:16:00
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