Arctic blast ends New York snow drought, brings record cold

NEW YORK:

Millions of Americans woke up Tuesday to snow, freezing rain and freezing temperatures as an Arctic blast hit much of the United States, ending a nearly two-year “snow drought” in New York and putting much of the West in deep freeze.

Record-breaking cold was expected in the Rockies, Great Plains and Midwest, with wind chills below minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 34 degrees Celsius) reaching the mid-Mississippi Valley in the morning.

The lowest temperature in the country Tuesday morning was -36 F (-38 C) in the small town of Briggsdale, Colorado, population 134.

“It’s crazy,” said Katie Sizemore, a barista at Blue Mug Coffee Bar in Greeley, Colorado, when told she was near the coldest spot in America.

Greeley, about 30 miles (50 km) south of Briggsdale, was about 13 degrees warmer than its neighbor to the north, but Sizemore said locals were still bracing for the cold by putting on extra layers and cranking up heaters.

“We don’t go out long,” he said.

In New York City, which hadn’t received more than an inch of snow in nearly two years, residents woke up to a winter wonderland outside their windows. Manhattan’s Central Park was covered in 3.6 centimeters as of Tuesday morning, ending a 701-day “snow drought” without a dusting.

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“The streak is over!” the New York office of the National Weather Service posted on Facebook, urging users to comment on what most saw as a welcome surprise.

Overnight, 4 to 5 inches (10 to 13 cm) of dust painted Washington, DC, white, while 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) fell in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

An additional 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) was expected across New England, stretching into New York state, before a brief midweek reprieve from the freezing weather, the weather service said.

Buffalo, New York received 12 to 30 inches of snow overnight on top of the 3 feet that fell over the weekend. The weather service issued a “lake effect” snow warning Tuesday for much of western New York that will remain in effect until Thursday night.

Such snowfalls are typical of western New York in the winter, when unfrozen waters of the Great Lakes mix with frozen air in the upper atmosphere, forming clouds that quickly produce snow, according to the weather service.

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Snow also covered the Appalachians and western North Carolina, with southern states experiencing unusually cold weather, according to Bob Oravec of the weather service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

Nashville, Tennessee, “which doesn’t see very heavy snow,” received 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm), Oravec said. Residents of Mobile, Alabama – in the heart of the Deep South – woke up to freezing rain and a rare temperature of 31 F (-0.5 C).

Deaths and riots

Nationally, at least five people have died as a result of the weather since the weekend, including two from hypothermia in recent days in Oregon, local media reported.

A series of major power outages this weekend have been mostly repaired, but more than 50,000 customers were without power in Oregon Tuesday morning. Tens of thousands were in the dark in Louisiana, Texas and Alabama, according to data from PowerOutage.us.

Texas’ power grid operator asked state residents to conserve electricity Tuesday morning due to high demand amid the winter storm.

More than 3,000 flights into, out of or within the United States were canceled or delayed, with Houston’s George W. Bush Intercontinental Airport and New York’s LaGuardia Airport experiencing some of the worst disruptions, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.