Genesis extremely low-temperature cold snap swept through North America, flights were chaotic, power was cut off, and hundreds of millions of Americans and Canadians spent Christmas in the bitter cold

Genesis extremely low-temperature cold snap swept through North America, flights were chaotic, power was cut off, and hundreds of millions of Americans and Canadians spent Christmas in the bitter cold

Nearly 250 million people on the North American continent, more than 3,200 kilometers from Quebec in Canada to Texas in the southern United States, were affected by the winter storm and extreme cold brought about by the recent Arctic “bomb cyclone”, leaving more than 1 million Americans and Canadians still facing power outages on December 25 and spending Christmas under the “worst winter weather warning on record.”

The winter storm, which began on Friday, canceled thousands of flights over Christmas and affected the travel plans and holiday schedules of millions of Americans. At the same time, rising heat demand added a burden to the nation’s energy system, and the storm wreaked havoc on transmission lines, leaving as many as 1.8 million homes and businesses in the U.S. without power by Saturday morning, and more than 1 million remaining without power Sunday.

The unprecedented Arctic cold swept through two-thirds of the eastern United States, breaking many Christmas cold records and affecting about 60 percent of the U.S. population. Montana in the western United States was the most affected by the winter storm, with temperatures dropping to minus 45 degrees Celsius. Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan all experienced-“white” low-visibility weather. In Buffalo, New York, local visibility is zero.

In the Pacific Northwest, many residents skate through the frozen streets of Seattle and Portland. Even Florida and Georgia, which usually have relatively warm winters, have experienced sub-zero freezing temperatures.

The only one that has escaped the extremely cold climate of the Arctic Snap is California, whose land mountains help block the cold snap’s southward movement.

In Canada, two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, were directly affected by the Arctic “bomb cyclone”. Other parts of Canada were also affected by extreme cold and winter storms.

So far, the winter storm has killed at least 19 people, some of them related to traffic accidents caused by bad weather, including four people killed in a series of 50-vehicle collisions in Ohio. Four other people died in separate accidents in the state.

In addition, more than 2,360 domestic and international flights were cancelled on Saturday, disrupting many people’s holiday travel or homecoming plans.

The Associated Press reported that millions of people in the United States are trapped in their homes to escape the cold at night and early in the morning, while many have blocked their doors due to the movement of snowdrifts caused by hurricane-like winds, preventing them from going out to heated shelters and paralyzing the movement of emergency workers.