A powerful winter storm with strong snowfall and winds whipped up the east coast of U.S yesterday, causing transport chaos and power outages in a region where some 70 million people reside.
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With multiple blizzard warnings in effect, cities like New York The US and Boston were hardest hit by the storm, which the National Weather Service confirmed yesterday had intensified into a “bomb cyclone,” characterized by the explosive power of rapid drops in atmospheric pressure.
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More than 4,600 flights were canceled yesterday by the powerful snow storm leaving in its wake temperatures well below zero degrees Celsius and strong winds.
The director of the New York Emergency Services, Jackie Bray, specified in a press conference that yesterday 76 percent of the flights at John F. Kennedy and 90 percent at La Guardia, while Newark grounded 85 percent of planes.
“The combination of intense snowfall and strong winds will produce dangerous snowstorms from the mid-Atlantic coast and (the region of) New England, from Virginia, to eastern Maine,” said the National Weather Service, which warned that “travel in these areas was almost impossible (yesterday) due to the conditions.”
Coastal areas were expected to get more than a foot of snow by the end of yesterday, and up to 3 feet in parts of Massachusetts, where more than 119,000 homes were reported without power.
Frost alerts were issued even in Florida (southeast), where authorities even warned about the risk of iguanas – a species of lizard that can weigh up to nine kilos – falling from the trees because they are temporarily frozen.
The governments of the states of New York and New Jersey declared a state of emergency and the mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, declared a snow emergency. “It’s going to get pretty ugly,” Wu told the media, indicating that “it’s going to be a historic storm.”
The storm will bring extremely cold temperatures with dangerous wind gusts through tomorrow morning, the weather service said. “Come home tonight with care, stay home through the weekend, avoid any unnecessary travel,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement, noting that there would be especially heavy snowfall on Long Island. , New York and the lower Hudson Valley.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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