Tens of millions of Americans endured bone-chilling temperatures, blizzard conditions, power outages and canceled flights Friday from a winter storm that forecasters said was nearly unprecedented in its scope. More than 200 million people were under an advisory or warning on Friday, according to the National Weather Service and the weather service’s map “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever,” forecasters said.
More than 3,400 flights were canceled Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware, causing more mayhem as travelers try to make it home for the holidays. Some airports, including Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, closed runways.
The Weather Channel has confirmed at least six deaths in Winter Storm Elliott. Officials said a fatal crash Wednesday in York, Nebraska, was blamed on the winter storm’s conditions. The driver of the single-car crash was identified as Louis Coyle, 84, of Lehigh, Kansas, according to local media.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear confirmed the sixth death this morning.
As of 9:30 a.m. eastern time, more than 1 million homes and businesses from Texas eastward were without power because of Winter Storm Elliott, according to PowerOutage.us. North Carolina and Connecticut had the most outages, with more than 100,000 customers in the dark in each state.
As flooding worsened along the Northeast coast, the opposite effect was playing out along the Texas coast as the cold air pushed southward. In Trinity Bay, near Galveston, a blowout tide was reported and sections of the bay had no water at all.
The strong north flow not only brought down the temperatures, but also the water levels! Extremely low water levels are being reported around Galveston Bay this morning… here’s a snap shot from @SaltwaterRecon showing Trinity Bay is more like Trinity Beach. #HOUwx #TXwx #GLSwx pic.twitter.com/QltJpkbdkN
— NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) December 23, 2022
Footage captured early this morning by storm chaser Simon Brewer showed blowing snow in Dayton, Ohio, that significantly reduced visibility and made travel very dangerous. The video nearly resembled footage from parts of Wyoming a day earlier.
You can see the scenes in Dayton here.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
The weather service is predicting the coldest Christmas in more than two decades in Philadelphia, where school officials shifted classes online Friday. Some surrounding districts canceled classes altogether.
In South Dakota, Gov. Kristi Noem late Thursday activated the state’s National Guard to haul firewood from the Black Hills Forest Service to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe as some members were stranded in their homes with dwindling fuel.
Most of western and parts of northern Michigan were under blizzard warnings, according to the weather service. On the other side of the state, the zoo and an art museum in Detroit were closing. And to the north of the city, a rescue team used a Hovercraft to reach an injured swan Thursday that became frozen to ice on a lake.
Buffalo, New York, Mayor Byron Brown urged people to stay home as meteorologists warned that the city could see 2 to 4 feet (0.6 to 1.2 meters) of snow through the weekend.
While New England was being spared the numbing cold and snow, heavy rain and wind gusting to more than 60 mph knocked out power to thousands. About 150,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont had no electricity as of Friday morning, according to the region’s major utilities. There were another 100,000 outages in Connecticut.
