As hundreds of thousands of people remain without power in Texas on Thursday amid frigid temperatures and icy roads, the northeastern United States is bracing for a gust of icy air that forecasters say could be the worst cold in decades.
Texas has been impacted by a dangerous ice storm that dumped several rounds of hail and freezing rain, causing life-threatening conditions on highways in neighboring states, including Oklahoma, Arkansas and the Memphis, Tennessee area.
On Wednesday, Texas said a third person died during the storm after losing control of his truck on an icy road north of Eldorado. One person was killed in a 10-car pileup in Austin, and another died after his car overturned in the Dallas-area town of Arlington, authorities said.
While Thursday was expected to bring some relief from the deadly storm as temperatures slowly rise, the buildup of multiple layers of ice and hail snapped tree limbs and led to power outages to nearly 400,000 Texas homes and businesses by morning. Thursday, according to PowerOutage.us.
This means that thousands of people probably don’t have heat or hot water, as ice covers the ground.
Overnight and into early Thursday, an additional 6 millimeters of ice could cover already slippery roads, especially in central and north Texas, southern Oklahoma and Arkansas.
“This will lead to full storm ice accumulation” in many locations, increasing the risk of significant tree damage and power outages, as well as icy and dangerous roads. At times, sleet can also mix with freezing rain, which will increase the chances of ice on the roads,” the National Weather Service said.
As Texas and the central-south region await higher temperatures, another winter storm looming in the northeast raised the alarm for meteorologists about the possibility of wind temperatures well below -17ºC this Friday (3) and Saturday (4). ).
“This is an epic, generational Arctic outbreak,” said the National Weather Service in Caribou, Maine. “The air mass descending on the area this Friday through Friday night is the coldest air currently in the Northern Hemisphere.”
There are over 6,000 flights canceled so far this week
So far this week, there have been 6,236 flight cancellations in and out of the US, including 703 cancellations as of Thursday at 8:15 am local time, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
Source: CNN Brasil
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