The United States is bracing for what forecasters have described as an “extremely dangerous” winter storm expected to impact more than 160 million people from Friday, bringing heavy snowfall, freezing rain and sub-zero temperatures as it moves eastward from the High Plains and Rockies, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), which warned that the Arctic blast will produce wind chills that “pose a life-threatening risk of hypothermia and frostbite to exposed skin,” while transportation officials across several major cities cautioned that weekend travel could be severely disrupted by delays and cancellations.
The slow-moving storm is forecast to blanket cities including Memphis, Nashville, Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, with heavy snow stretching from the Southern Rockies and Plains through the Mid-Atlantic and into the Northeast, and the NWS Probabilistic Precipitation Portal indicating that areas from Colorado to West Virginia to Boston could receive more than a foot of snow, while numerous temperature records may be broken and wind chills could drop below -50F (-46C) across the Northern Plains, with freezing temperatures also expected across a much wider portion of the south-eastern US.
Governors in several states, including Arkansas, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina, have declared states of emergency to allow emergency officials and National Guard units to mobilise, as airlines offer passengers flexible rebooking options amid fears of cancellations, and NWS meteorologists Rich Otto and Tony Fracasso warned that travel could be “nearly impossible during the peak of the storm,” while in Canada, meteorologist Geoff Coulson told CBC that freezing temperatures are already gripping the country, with snowfall expected in eastern and Atlantic regions early next week.