Brutal cold snap sweeps US East Coast
TEMPERATURES TO BE BELOW AVERAGE ACROSS THE NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS
Residents shovel snow in Boston as frigid temperatures, as cold as minus 30 degrees, swept across the US East Coast yesterday. The brutal cold spell in the US has already killed at least 19 people.
Street crews dug out snow-clogged roads across the US Northeast on Friday after a powerful blizzard, as temperatures plunged during a brutal cold spell that has already killed at least 18 people.
Extreme cold will reach from New England to the Midwest and down to the Carolinas, forecasters warned. Temperatures were expected to be minus 6 degrees to minus 1 degree Celsius below average across the northeastern US for the next several days.
From Baltimore to Caribou, Maine, workers battled to clear snow and ice as wind chills were forecast to fall as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius in some areas after sundown, according to the National Weather Service.
In the latest fatality blamed on the harsh conditions, a driver slid off an icy road, killing a pedestrian, early on Friday in North Charleston, South Carolina, city officials said.
The 17-year-old driver was arrested on charges including going too fast for the conditions, they said.
The officials warned in a Twitter message. “Huge patches of ice all over the city. Stay at home.” In much of New England on Friday, the highs were still cold, but wind chills made it feel even colder in many places.
Exposed skin
“It can be very dangerous,” said Dan Pydynowski, a meteorologist with private forecasting service AccuWeather. “Any kind of exposed skin can freeze in a couple of minutes.” There were noticeably fewer tourists on Friday afternoon in New York City’s Times Square, which is usually thronged with visitors.
Arjun Shah, a 22-year-old Briton, studies in Indiana but had never visited the US East Coast. He flew in to New York City, where temperatures have been below freezing since Christmas Day, just 24 hours before the blizzard struck.
“Oh it’s so bad! It’s not this bad in London,” Shah said, shivering while taking a break from snapping photos of Times Square. In Washington, bundled-up tourists ventured onto the frozen Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial before being shooed away by a National Park Service ranger.
The memorial, also normally busy with visitors, was mostly vacant with temperatures in the teens and bone-chilling winds that sent American flags whipping straight out from their poles.
“I don’t think I’ve felt this cold, ever,” said Zoie Irwin, a 19-year-old student from San Francisco State University as she huddled with friends.
At the nearby National World War II Memorial, Varun Solipuram, a 31-year-old native of Hyderabad, India, who studies in California, said he was taken aback by snow in the bright winter sun.
“It’s really beautiful,” Solipuram said.
The storm that swept in on Thursday with gusts of more than 113km/h dumped 56 centimetres of snow in parts of Maine and 43 centimetres in parts of Massachusetts, before ending on Friday, the National Weather Service said.
The storm was powered by a rapid drop in barometric pressure that some weather forecasters called a bombogenesis, or a “bomb cyclone”.
Cities from Houston to Boston have stepped up efforts to bring the homeless to shelters.