Winter weather live updates | Travel chaos, bitter cold
PEDRO, Ohio — A utility worker has died while trying to restore power in southeastern Ohio, and people in Kentucky, Michigan and Wisconsin also died with much of the U.S. in the grip of a massive winter storm.
Across the country, officials have attributed at least 17 deaths to exposure, icy car crashes and other effects of the storm.
Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative said in a statement that apprentice line worker Blake Rodgers, 22, died in “an electrical contact incident” near Pedro, near the state’s borders with both Kentucky and West Virginia. The utility said no further details were available.
In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear warned people Saturday to avoid Interstate 71, which links Lousville to Cincinnati, Ohio, after a series of accidents since Thursday night. Beshear said Friday that one person died in a traffic accident attributed to the weather in western Kentucky and a homeless person died in Louisville.
In Lansing, Michigan, an 82-year-old woman died at a hospital after being found Friday morning curled up in the snow by a snowplow driver outside of the assisted living community where she lived, police reported. The temperature in the area Friday morning was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-12.2 Celsius).
A 57-year-old woman died Friday after falling through ice on the Rock River south of Janesville, Wisconsin, just north of the Illinois linr, WMTV reported. Authorities said multiple agencies were called for a water rescue but could not see the woman through the ice.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS:
— Winter storm blamed for at least 17 deaths, large power outages
— Millions of power customer asked to cut use to avoid blackouts
— Tennessee Valley Authority ends rolling blackouts for 7 states
— Mississippi’s capital sees fluctuating water pressure
— Authorities in San Diego begin dropping migrants at bus stations
— Duke Energy: Power back for 25% in Carolinas affected by outages
— Western New York residents scramble from homes to warmer places
— Unusual cold in Florida doesn’t stop Santas from surfing
— Frigid weather delays start of Texans-Titans game in Nashville
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HARRISBURG, Pa. — Utilities across the eastern half of the U.S. have asked their customers to cut back temporarily on their power use, warning them of rolling blackouts.
Pennsylvania-based PJM Interconnections issued such a warning for 65 million customers in 13 states, asking them to conserve electricity into Christmas morning. It said power plants are having difficulty operating in the freezing cold.
The company providing electricity to parts of northeastern Indiana and southwestern Michigan also asked customers to reduce power use because of extraordinary demands on its system. County road crews in parts of western Michigan were experiencing white-out conditions due to the snow blowing across roadways.
Meanwhile, Detroit-based DTE Energy said more than 23,000 lost power as the storm and freezing temperatures blew into Michigan, though it said about 80% had their power restored as of Saturday morning.
In Wisconsin, a request to cut energy use came Friday from a company that provides natural gas throughout the state. Milwaukee-based We Energies asked customers to drop their thermostats to 60 to 62 degrees Fahrenheit (15.6 to 16.7 Celsius) because a pipeline equipment failure temporarily cut the gas coming from one of its suppliers by 30%.
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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee Valley Authority has ended rolling blackouts that it said were necessary to meet record-setting electricity demands.
“We recognize that these planned temporary disruptions are a challenge, but it was needed to maintain grid stability for 10 million people across seven states,” TVA said in a statement at midday Saturday. “Thank you for doing your part, conserving energy, and helping us manage this extreme weather event.”
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JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi’s capital city of Jackson was experiencing “fluctuating water pressure” Saturday, with frigid weather hampering efforts to stabilize it.
“Both of our water plants are functioning, so crews are now working to determine what is causing the fluctuation,” said Melissa Payne, a city spokesperson.
Some residents in Mississippi’s capital city may temporarily experience low water pressure, officials warned.
The potential for further disruptions to Jackson’s water system comes just months after the city of about 150,000 residents lost water in late August.
The water system fell into crisis after flooding exacerbated longstanding problems in one of two water-treatment plants. In February 2021, tens of thousands of Jackson residents were without reliable running water for days after pipes froze.
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SAN DIEGO — U.S. authorities facing weather-related travel and capacity issues have started dropping off migrants in San Diego at bus stations, a rarity since nongovernment organizations built a robust supply of temporary housing in 2018.
The San Diego Rapid Response Network, a coalition that includes a Jewish Family Service shelter for 250 migrants, stopped taking people after weather snarled travel across the country.
“Due to the extreme weather conditions impacting outbound travel, our resources and the current infrastructure have been stretched to capacity,” the group said on its website, adding that it will “resume welcoming additional asylum seekers as capacity and weather conditions improve.”
It was unclear how many migrants had been released, and the Border Patrol didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond said Friday that he had been notified of 200 to be released in the city of San Diego and two suburbs.
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — About 25% of the Duke Energy customers who lost power in the Carolinas have had it restored, the utility said Saturday.
Just under 265,000 customers remained without power in North Carolina as of the early afternoon Saturday, more than in any other state, according to poweroutage.us. The figure for North Carolina initially was 450,000.
The company attributed the outages to a spike in demand for power as temperatures dropped to record lows, straining its system.
In Greensboro in northern North Carolina, James Reynolds said his best friend and housemate, a 70-year-old with diabetes and severe arthritis, spent the morning sitting beside his kerosene heater, bundled in layers of extra clothing, while Reynolds used it to heat leftover chili.
“Although it puts out a good amount of heat, the bedrooms and much of the house temperatures are hovering in the 50s,” Reynolds told The Associated Press.
Mecklenburg County said Friday it was adding capacity to its homeless shelters, and state officials said warming centers were opening around the state.
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MONTPELIER, Vt. — Almost 330,000 electric customers across the six New England states remained without power late Saturday morning.
The most outages were reported in Maine, where almost 208,000 customers were in the dark.
Some utilities warned it could be days before power is restored.
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BUFFALO, N.Y. — Deep snow, freezing temperatures and power outages in western New York sent people scrambling to get out of their houses and to churches, police stations and anywhere else with heat.
The National Guard was working to free stranded motorists and the Erie County executive was advising people against leaving their homes. First responders and emergency equipment could not get through to the hardest-hit places, especially Buffalo, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said on social media.
Poloncarz said ambulances needed more than three hours for a single trip to a hospital when they could get through the snow and large snow drifts, abandoned cars and downed power lines are slowing the progress of plows in clearing roads.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the storm in the area “life-threatening” and “one of the worst in history.”
“It’s essentially a category 3 hurricane with a bunch of snow mixed in. It’s been like that for the past 24 hours,” said Chief Timothy Carney of the Erie County Sheriff’s Office.
As of Saturday afternoon, more than 60,000 customers in New York were out of power, according to https://www.poweroutage.us, more than half of them in western New York.
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COCOA BEACH, Fla. — For the surfing Santas off Florida’s central coast, the Atlantic Ocean was going to feel more like the North Pole than the Sunshine State.
Temperatures on Saturday morning plunged to around freezing, while freeze warnings were in place for at least half of the state.
Parts of the Florida Panhandle had wind chills that dipped into the single digits on Saturday morning, and interior parts of central Florida had temperatures plunging as low as 27 degrees Fahrenheit (-2.7 Celsius).
“It’s a frigid start to your #ChristmasEve across the area,” the National Weather Service in Tallahassee tweeted.
Despite the frigid temperature, the 14th annual Christmas Eve Surfing Santas festival was being held Saturday morning at Cocoa Beach on Florida’s Space Coast.
The event has grown from 10 surfers dressed in Santa costumes when it started in 2009 to 600 participants on surfboards, boogie boards and paddle boards in years past. In anticipation of the frigid weather, a beachside restaurant planned to distribute free hot cocoa to the expected thousands of spectators, according to organizers.
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NASHVILLE — Extreme cold and power outages in the region delayed the kickoff of the Houston Texans’ visit to the Tennessee Titans by an hour after the Nashville mayor asked the hometown team to postpone the game.
The Titans also said the team was working to cut all nonessential power around Nissan Stadium even with gates open for fans.
Nashville Mayor John Cooper wrote on social media asking everyone, especially nonessential businesses, to cut back their power usage.
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MONTPELIER, Vt. — The massive, wild winter storm that has gripped much of the U.S. has been blamed for deaths in Vermont, New York, Colorado, Missouri and Kansas.
Multiple highways were closed and crashes claimed at least eight lives, officials said. Four people died in a massive pileup involving some 50 vehicles on the Ohio Turnpike. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.
A 51-year-old Vermont woman died Friday after a tree in her back yard broke off in high winds and fell on her in the town of Castleton, in west-central Vermont near New York. Police said she died at a hospital after the Friday morning accident.
In New York, two people died in their homes in the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga on Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical emergencies, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Saturday.
Police in Colorado Springs, Colorado, said they found the body of a person who appeared to be homeless during this week’s winter storm. Officers found the 42-year-old man’s body outside near the Citadel Mall at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, The Gazette reported.
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Follow AP coverage of weather at: https://apnews.com/hub/weather
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is expanding the state National Guard’s mission to assist both the Oglala Sioux and the Rosebud Sioux Tribes with firewood and snow removal amid the relentless wind and life-threatening cold that have crippled their reservations in the southwestern corner of the state.
Noem announced the deployment to haul firewood from the Black Hills Forest Service to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe late Thursday, and on Friday she said the Guard would assist the Oglala Sioux Tribe as well.
The Republican governor has had an often uneasy relationship with the tribes, and the cooperation to deploy the National Guard underscored a desperate situation. Tribal officials say snow drifts have formed as high as 10 feet (3 meters), blocking roads and stranding families with dwindling supplies for heating and food.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe was using snowmobiles and other tracked vehicles to reach people, but said they are facing breakdowns and limited resources. Officials were considering using horses to deliver essentials to some homes on Friday.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS
— South Dakota governor deploys National Guard to help desperate tribes
— Ontario, Quebec, pummeled by winter storm
— Ho, ho, snow: NORAD’s Santa tracker ready to roll despite winter storm
— Falling iguana alert! Even sunny Florida could see freezing temps this weekend
— Huge storm intensifies into a “ bomb cyclone ”
— As temperatures plummet, migrants wait along the U.S.-Mexico border for a possible change to asylum rules
— Air Force tops Baylor in frigid Armed Forces Bowl
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
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TORONTO — Meteorologists in Canada are warning of a potential once-in-a-decade weather event as a winter storm causes widespread school closures, power outages and flight cancellations.
Environment Canada is predicting strong winds, heavy snowfall and possible flash freezing and has issued winter storm warnings for the vast majority of Ontario and Quebec.
“We may only see one of these storms every five or 10 years,” says Environment Canada meteorologist Mitch Meredith. “I’ve only seen a couple of storms like this in the last 20 years.”
Environment Canada said flash, or sudden, freezes are likely as rain turned to heavy snow on Friday in parts of southern Ontario, creating dangerous driving conditions.
The storm upended holiday travel plans for thousands of people as airlines preemptively canceled flights, with more disruptions expected.
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JACKSON, Miss. — In Jackson, Mississippi, the city’s beleaguered water system has so far been able to withstand blistering temperature drops, city officials said Friday. The mayor had expressed concerns that the system — which has led to numerous water shortages in recent years — remained vulnerable to subfreezing temperatures.
The city’s main water plants “held up to the temperature drops overnight,” city spokeswoman Melissa Faith Payne told WLBT-TV. There have been some water main breaks and some residents have experienced lower water pressure, but crews were making repairs, she said.
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NEW YORK — Calling it a “kitchen sink storm,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency Friday as wintry weather heads into the state.
“It is throwing everything at us but the kitchen sink. We’ve had ice, flooding, snow, freezing temperatures, and everything that Mother Nature could wallop at us this weekend,” Hochul said during a press briefing.
In some parts of the state, precipitation is coming down in rain, which is then turning into ice as temperatures quickly dip. Other parts of the state are at risk of flooding, Hochul said.
“The rain comes down and there’s barely enough time between the rain and the icing for our snowplows and crews to be able to salt the roads,” the governor said.
“This is a life threatening event,” Hochul said.
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Rest assured, kids. A bomb cyclone is no match for the big man in red.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, is the U.S. military agency responsible for monitoring and defending the skies above North America.
The agency also runs the NORAD Tracks Santa service, which allows people to follow his Christmas journey through its noradsanta.org website, social media channels and mobile app.
The agency this year plans to have about 1,500 volunteers working on Christmas Eve to field phone calls from children who want to know Santa’s location and delivery schedule. The frightful weather isn’t expected to affect Santa’s schedule.
“I think Santa will be right at home with the Arctic weather that’s hitting into the lower 48,” says Lt. General David Nahom, a NORAD official based in Anchorage, Alaska.
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COLLEGE PARK, Md. — This week’s massive storm with its blizzard conditions and Arctic air may set some temperature and wind gust records, but it isn’t unprecedented.
That’s according to Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations for the Weather Prediction Center at the National Weather Service. But the storm hitting just before the Christmas holiday when so many Americans are traveling, however, will make it especially disruptive.
“The impacts are perhaps far greater than they might be in the middle of winter during a typical weekend without a holiday,” said Carbin. “It is a notable storm.”
The initial shock of cold temperatures is like the fatal February 2021 winter storm where frigid air descended into Texas. But the cold during that storm lingered, knocking out power for millions in Texas. Many died from hypothermia. This storm isn’t expected to last as long.
“Give it a day or two” and temperatures will start to rebound, Carbin said.
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WATERLOO, Iowa — Even though the sporting events were canceled, eastern Iowa sports broadcaster Mark Woodley didn’t get the day off.
“I normally do sports,” Woodley says on-air for Waterloo TV station KWWL. “Everything is canceled here for the next couple of days so what better time to ask the sports guy to come in about five hours earlier than he would normally wake up and go stand out in the wind and the snow and the cold and tell other people not to do the same?”
By midday Friday, a compilation of his TV stand-ups had been viewed nearly 5 million times on Twitter.
He later says to a news anchor: “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is that I can still feel my face right now. The bad news is, I kind of wish I couldn’t.”
It may be awhile before Woodley returns to sports. Waterloo, which is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northeast of Des Moines, remains under a blizzard warning until 6 a.m. Saturday.
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Power outages are piling up across the United States from a winter storm that is bringing heavy snow and powerful winds to much of the country.
More than 1.4 million homes and businesses were without electricity Friday morning. That’s according to the website PowerOutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
Most of the outages are in the Eastern U.S., where gusty winds have knocked down trees and power lines.
In Vermont, residents were told to plan for a “multi-day event” for full power restoration and cleanup.
“I’m hearing from crews who are seeing grown trees ripped out by the roots,” Mari McClure, president of Green Mountain Power, the state’s largest utility, said at a news conference.
In Maine, gusts approaching 70 mph (113 kph) were reported along the coast Friday morning. Atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, the tallest peak in the Northeast, the wind topped 130 mph (210 kph).
Hundreds of utility and tree crews were deployed in New England, but the high winds hampered them. The limit for using bucket trucks is typically 25 mph (40 kph) to 35 mph (56 kph), a utility official said.
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SEATTLE — All bus service was suspended in the greater Seattle area Friday morning due to an ice storm that made travel treacherous and Sea-Tac International Airport closed two out of three runways.
King County Metro said buses were unable to leave bases due to “deteriorating and unsafe road conditions.” The agency said it hoped it would be able to run buses later Friday. In Pierce, Kitsap and Snohomish counties, authorities also halted bus service.
The Pacific Northwest has shivered under extreme cold for several days. Forecasters said the freezing rain, which is affecting western Washington and Oregon, is happening as temperatures start to rise and a storm moves through. The warm up will be quick, with forecasters saying temperatures could reach the 50s in Seattle by Christmas.
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COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The huge winter storm pummeling parts of the United States and Canada has intensified into a bomb cyclone. That’s according to the National Weather Service, which says the atmospheric pressure of the storm has dropped rapidly enough over the past 24 hours to classify the system that way.
John Moore, a spokesman and meteorologist with the National Weather Service, says the central pressure of the system has fallen rapidly and is expected to continue dropping over the next few hours.
Blizzard warnings are in effect in the Great Lakes area, where snowfall is expected to combine with powerful winds to create whiteout conditions.
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COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Extreme cold, powerful wind and blowing snow are wreaking havoc on holiday travelers.
The National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center calls it a “historic winter storm.” If you’re in the U.S., there’s a good chance winter weather of some sort is in your forecast. The weather service says its map “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever.”
By the numbers:
— 181 million people are under wind chill warnings or advisories.
— More than 11 million people are under blizzard warnings.
— 58 million people face winter storm warnings.
— And more than 500,000 people are under ice storm warnings.
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NEW YORK — What is a “bomb cyclone” anyway?
The name comes from the meteorological term bombogenesis, which occurs when a fast-developing storm rapidly intensifies, causing atmospheric pressure to quickly drop in a 24-hour period. Bombogenesis creates a bomb cyclone.
It all started farther north, as frigid air collected over the snow-covered ground in the Arctic, said Ryan Maue, a private meteorologist in the Atlanta area.
Then the jet stream — wobbling air currents in the middle and upper parts of the atmosphere — began pushing this cold pool down into the U.S.
As this arctic air is pushed into the warmer, moister air ahead of it, the system can quickly develop into serious weather, including a bomb cyclone.
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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — A group of Venezuelan migrants sought refuge from the cold under blankets beside a bonfire in a dirt alleyway beside a crumbling cinderblock wall in this city across the border from El Paso.
“We’re from the coast (of Venezuela) with lot of sun and the cold affects us,” said 22-year-old Rafael Gonzalez and a native of La Guaira on the Caribbean coast. “The shelter here is very full. ... And that means it’s our turn to be here, having a little bonfire.”
He and others said they are eager to learn whether the U.S. will lift restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the border.
Nearby, migrants from Venezuela and Central America sought refuge from the cold in a three-room shelter without beds, lying shoulder-to-shoulder among blankets on a concrete floor.
The shelter has been forged gradually with repairs to an abandoned building in recent weeks. The project is the work of pastor Elias Rodriguez of the Casa Nueva Voz ministry, who grew concerned about the emergence of a small “tent city” along the Rio Grande without even a water faucet.
“Outside there are people making fires, people waiting by the door because we only have 135 spaces,” Rodriguez said.
“It’s been so cold that people, when I step outside, they say, ‘Please let me in even if there’s standing room only, I don’t even have to find a place on the floor to sleep as long as you just allow me to come in.’”
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FORT WORTH, Texas — “Cold might be putting it mildly,” Air Force coach Troy Calhoun said after the Falcons beat Baylor 30-15 on Thursday night.
“I don’t think I’ve experienced anything like that,” he said. “When it’s not warm, it’s not easy. It never is at the United States Air Force Academy. But these guys, just the heart, the guts and the right, extraordinary young people. I’m glad they’re fighting for our country.”
Baylor officials announced it was the coldest kickoff temperature in the history of the program based about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Dallas-Fort Worth in Waco.
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Follow AP coverage of weather at: https://apnews.com/hub/weather
NEW YORK — Calling it a “kitchen sink storm,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency Friday as wintry weather heads into the state.
“It is throwing everything at us but the kitchen sink. We’ve had ice, flooding, snow, freezing temperatures, and everything that Mother Nature could wallop at us this weekend,” Hochul said during a press briefing.
In some parts of the state, precipitation is coming down in rain, which is then turning into ice as temperatures quickly dip. Other parts of the state are at risk of flooding, Hochul said.
“The rain comes down and there’s barely enough time between the rain and the icing for our snowplows and crews to be able to salt the roads,” the governor said.
“This is a life threatening event,” Hochul said.
___
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
— Ho, ho, snow: NORAD’s Santa tracker ready to roll despite winter storm
— Falling iguana alert! Even sunny Florida could see freezing temps this weekend
— Huge storm intensifies into a “ bomb cyclone ”
— As temperatures plummet, migrants wait along the U.S.-Mexico border for a possible change to asylum rules
— Air Force tops Baylor in frigid Armed Forces Bowl
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — Rest assured, kids. A bomb cyclone is no match for the big man in red.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, is the U.S. military agency responsible for monitoring and defending the skies above North America.
The agency also runs the NORAD Tracks Santa service, which allows people to follow his Christmas journey through its noradsanta.org website, social media channels and mobile app.
The agency this year plans to have about 1,500 volunteers working on Christmas Eve to field phone calls from children who want to know Santa’s location and delivery schedule. The frightful weather isn’t expected to affect Santa’s schedule.
“I think Santa will be right at home with the Arctic weather that’s hitting into the lower 48,” says Lt. General David Nahom, a NORAD official based in Anchorage, Alaska.
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COLLEGE PARK, Md. — This week’s massive storm with its blizzard conditions and Arctic air may set some temperature and wind gust records, but it isn’t unprecedented.
That’s according to Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations for the Weather Prediction Center at the National Weather Service. But the storm hitting just before the Christmas holiday when so many Americans are traveling, however, will make it especially disruptive.
“The impacts are perhaps far greater than they might be in the middle of winter during a typical weekend without a holiday,” said Carbin. “It is a notable storm.”
The initial shock of cold temperatures is like the fatal February 2021 winter storm where frigid air descended into Texas. But the cold during that storm lingered, knocking out power for millions in Texas. Many died from hypothermia. This storm isn’t expected to last as long.
“Give it a day or two” and temperatures will start to rebound, Carbin said.
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WATERLOO, Iowa — Even though the sporting events were canceled, eastern Iowa sports broadcaster Mark Woodley didn’t get the day off.
“I normally do sports,” Woodley says on-air for Waterloo TV station KWWL. “Everything is canceled here for the next couple of days so what better time to ask the sports guy to come in about five hours earlier than he would normally wake up and go stand out in the wind and the snow and the cold and tell other people not to do the same?”
By midday Friday, a compilation of his TV stand-ups had been viewed nearly 5 million times on Twitter.
He later says to a news anchor: “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is that I can still feel my face right now. The bad news is, I kind of wish I couldn’t.”
It may be awhile before Woodley returns to sports. Waterloo, which is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northeast of Des Moines, remains under a blizzard warning until 6 a.m. Saturday.
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Power outages are piling up across the United States from a winter storm that is bringing heavy snow and powerful winds to much of the country.
More than 1.4 million homes and businesses were without electricity Friday morning. That’s according to the website PowerOutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
Most of the outages are in the Eastern U.S., where gusty winds have knocked down trees and power lines.
In Vermont, residents were told to plan for a “multi-day event” for full power restoration and cleanup.
“I’m hearing from crews who are seeing grown trees ripped out by the roots,” Mari McClure, president of Green Mountain Power, the state’s largest utility, said at a news conference.
In Maine, gusts approaching 70 mph (113 kph) were reported along the coast Friday morning. Atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, the tallest peak in the Northeast, the wind topped 130 mph (210 kph).
Hundreds of utility and tree crews were deployed in New England, but the high winds hampered them. The limit for using bucket trucks is typically 25 mph (40 kph) to 35 mph (56 kph), a utility official said.
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SEATTLE - All bus service was suspended in the greater Seattle area Friday morning due to an ice storm that made travel treacherous and Sea-Tac International Airport closed two out of three runways.
King County Metro said buses were unable to leave bases due to “deteriorating and unsafe road conditions.” The agency said it hoped it would be able to run buses later Friday. In Pierce, Kitsap and Snohomish counties, authorities also halted bus service.
The Pacific Northwest has shivered under extreme cold for several days. Forecasters said the freezing rain, which is affecting western Washington and Oregon, is happening as temperatures start to rise and a storm moves through. The warm up will be quick, with forecasters saying temperatures could reach the 50s in Seattle by Christmas.
___
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The huge winter storm pummeling parts of the United States and Canada has intensified into a bomb cyclone. That’s according to the National Weather Service, which says the atmospheric pressure of the storm has dropped rapidly enough over the past 24 hours to classify the system that way.
John Moore, a spokesman and meteorologist with the National Weather Service, says the central pressure of the system has fallen rapidly and is expected to continue dropping over the next few hours.
Blizzard warnings are in effect in the Great Lakes area, where snowfall is expected to combine with powerful winds to create whiteout conditions.
___
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Extreme cold, powerful wind and blowing snow are wreaking havoc on holiday travelers.
The National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center calls it a “historic winter storm.” If you’re in the U.S., there’s a good chance winter weather of some sort is in your forecast. The weather service says its map “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever.”
By the numbers:
— 181 million people are under wind chill warnings or advisories.
— More than 11 million people are under blizzard warnings.
— 58 million people face winter storm warnings.
— And more than 500,000 people are under ice storm warnings.
___
NEW YORK — What is a “bomb cyclone” anyway?
The name comes from the meteorological term bombogenesis, which occurs when a fast-developing storm rapidly intensifies, causing atmospheric pressure to quickly drop in a 24-hour period. Bombogenesis creates a bomb cyclone.
It all started farther north, as frigid air collected over the snow-covered ground in the Arctic, said Ryan Maue, a private meteorologist in the Atlanta area.
Then the jet stream — wobbling air currents in the middle and upper parts of the atmosphere — began pushing this cold pool down into the U.S.
As this arctic air is pushed into the warmer, moister air ahead of it, the system can quickly develop into serious weather, including a bomb cyclone.
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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — A group of Venezuelan migrants sought refuge from the cold under blankets beside a bonfire in a dirt alleyway beside a crumbling cinderblock wall in this city across the border from El Paso.
“We’re from the coast (of Venezuela) with lot of sun and the cold affects us,” said 22-year-old Rafael Gonzalez and a native of La Guaira on the Caribbean coast. “The shelter here is very full. ... And that means it’s our turn to be here, having a little bonfire.”
He and others said they are eager to learn whether the U.S. will lift restrictions on migrants seeking asylum at the border.
Nearby, migrants from Venezuela and Central America sought refuge from the cold in a three-room shelter without beds, lying shoulder-to-shoulder among blankets on a concrete floor.
The shelter has been forged gradually with repairs to an abandoned building in recent weeks. The project is the work of pastor Elias Rodriguez of the Casa Nueva Voz ministry, who grew concerned about the emergence of a small “tent city” along the Rio Grande without even a water faucet.
“Outside there are people making fires, people waiting by the door because we only have 135 spaces,” Rodriguez said.
“It’s been so cold that people, when I step outside, they say, ‘Please let me in even if there’s standing room only, I don’t even have to find a place on the floor to sleep as long as you just allow me to come in.’”
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FORT WORTH, Texas — “Cold might be putting it mildly,” Air Force coach Troy Calhoun said after the Falcons beat Baylor 30-15 on Thursday night.
“I don’t think I’ve experienced anything like that,” he said. “When it’s not warm, it’s not easy. It never is at the United States Air Force Academy. But these guys, just the heart, the guts and the right, extraordinary young people. I’m glad they’re fighting for our country.”
Baylor officials announced it was the coldest kickoff temperature in the history of the program based about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Dallas-Fort Worth in Waco.
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Follow AP coverage of weather at: https://apnews.com/hub/weather